


Ache

by krebkrebkreb



Series: ache [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, Blackwatch (Overwatch) - Freeform, Forced Proximity, M/M, Mating Bond, No mpreg, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Slow Burn, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-12 05:25:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 23,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13540641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krebkrebkreb/pseuds/krebkrebkreb
Summary: Genji has stepped over the line acting out this time and Hanzo has been given away in a marriage contract to act as an example. He's expecting to be forced to spend the rest of his life overseas, spending his life with a man he's never met.Jesse, on the other hand, is just doing a job. Get the information, do the arms deals.  Make sure everyone knows it was Overwatch, not Blackwatch, that has the Shimadas under their thumb now. Then he gets out.Except Hanzo is an omega and Jesse is an alpha and in a world where nobody has bothered to  educate Jesse about anything other than doing his job, that's going to be a problem.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my gosh have I been working on this for a long time. This fic has consumed me to the point that I *accidentally* began learning Japanese and I'm just delighted to be able to begin posting it.
> 
> To get some a/b/o rules out of the way, so I don't set any accidental expectations: Almost everyone is a beta and there will be no inhuman genitalia or mpreg. Honestly, it won't even be explicit. But there are social and biological differences in an a/b/o universe that I *love* and want to play around with.

The wedding ended hours ago and now even the tedious formalities are concluded. Hanzo is alone, if only for a moment.

He sits _seiza_ beside the futon, his knees pressed demurely together. His beautiful kimonos from earlier have been exchanged for a modest and traditional purple nightdress. He’s still wearing makeup and his hair is still piled upon his head and he _hates it_. Hates all of this and the brother who put him in this position.

Every time in the past when his father and the elders had almost offered him in a marriage contract, he had never felt any fear. He had been so sure nothing would have come of it, and nothing ever did. He was a good, dutiful son and made sure he was more useful inside the family than out of it. This time it was Genji who had made him more useful elsewhere. Genji who wouldn’t see reason. Genji who—

He forces himself to exhale, releasing his held breath forcing himself to let the tension go from his shoulders. Regaining the calm befitting of an omega waiting for his new husband. Breathe in, breathe out.

Orange and yellow light from the holographic candles dance up and down the walls and the many colorful silks hanging throughout the room. The rest of the technology in the room is hidden away and Hanzo finds himself grateful for the dreamlike atmosphere it creates. If he lets his mind drift he can imagine that this isn’t real. He drank too much last night and now he pays for it as his mind creates horrible, vivid fantasies while he sleeps. In a moment his alarm will go off and Genji will burst in before he has had time to compose himself and they will argue like they always do when he overindulges…

The door opens.

It is not Genji.

He did not really expect it to be Genji. This isn’t really a dream.

It is the same foreigner who stood beside him earlier as they were wed before the dragons in the shrine. Jesse McCree. He enters with an unsure shuffle to his slipper-clad feet, looking over his shoulder as the door slides shut behind him. The dark grey cotton kimono hangs down his broad chest in a way that could almost be attractive, in some other situation. Some other lifetime.

Hanzo inhales with intent, smelling sake from the ceremony and several other scents from Jesse McCree. Cigarette smoke, cologne, hair pomade. Why had they done his hair up in such a silly manner? It had been down when they had met yesterday, brown and wildly messy. Now it looks almost black in this light as it shines with product. Hanzo does not care for it.

It makes him look even more out of place. An obviously western man in a quintessentially Japanese outfit, room, building, watching his Japanese wife kneel at the head of the futon on the floor. Surrounding them are some of his most precious items, his fine silks and tea ceremony implements and _hina_ dolls. Everything essential for starting a new household. Likely nothing this other man even knows about.

The westerner turns around in a full circle, staring openly at everything around them.

“What’s all this then?” he asks. Hanzo had been right.

“My trousseau,” Hanzo says after a pause. He’s greeted with a blank face and tries again with a different word. Maybe he doesn’t know the proper English. “My dowry.”

Now his husband seems to understand, eyebrows raising upwards towards his slicked back hair. “What, you’re serious? A real dowry? Like a trunk of quilts on the goddamn Oregon Trail?”

Hanzo ignores the comparison he does not understand. “To prove to you and your—”

McCree’s abrupt, surprised laugh stops the rest of Hanzo’s words before they can leave his mouth.

“You got _nothing_ to prove. Your daddy has a castle.”

It’s Hanzo’s turn to laugh, without humor. “You could take my father’s castle by force.”

He seems genuinely taken aback. Like he had realized for the very first time that he has the upper hand in this arrangement, beyond being an alpha.

“It ain’t quite so simple, kid,” McCree says after a long pause. The words make Hanzo’s skin bristle. He will not be disrespected here, in his own home.

“I am your _elder_.” His tone is biting and harsh. Harsher than he intended it to be but there’s no taking it back.

The man snorts, seemingly unaffected. It reminds Hanzo of a horse. “By a _year_. I’m surprised you know that.”

“I know enough.” He knows that this man used to be a criminal. He knows the truth about about _Blackwatch_ and he knows the other man doesn’t know he knows. He knows this gives him some power here.

They hold each other’s gazes for an intense few moments. Hanzo tries to breathe evenly through his nose, tries to calm down.

“I guess you must have been given some info about me,” McCree says, breaking the silence. “I can’t say I’m half as good in the kitchen as my mama was, though. Unless you weren’t told about her restaurant. Then forget it.”

Hanzo exhales sharply, caught off-guard. Kitchen? Restaurant? Nothing like that had been in the dossier he had read. None of the information had concerned itself with the man’s early life. Why would it?

“I don’t expect anything from you at home. I know you probably don’t want to marry a stranger so it’s—”

“ _Quiet_!” Hanzo’s eyes dart towards the door, terrified of being overheard. He is the dutiful son and he won’t let this man put Genji in danger by implying he isn’t.

Thankfully, McCree seems to understand. He shuts his mouth and doesn’t speak, politely looking down at his feet. Hanzo thinks carefully, considering his thoughts and how he phrases them in English before speaking. Never was he prepared to marry a _foreigner_...

“I will do everything I am duty bound to do. My obligations will be fulfilled. My family’s obligations.”

This infuriating foreigner finally moves from where he’s been standing this entire time, crouching down in front of Hanzo. He’s less than a meter away, not far from invading his personal space. He’s obviously not used to wearing a kimono; keeping his knees together seems like it’s about to knock him off balance.

“Help me out here,” he says. “I don’t know what to do.”

Hanzo sniffs distastefully. “You do not know how to consummate a marriage? Am I wed to a virgin child?”

The man laughs, a surprised chuckle at the beginning turning into a full guffaw as he gives up on crouching and just kneels. His posture is horrible.

“Okay, if you want to go all the way with this…”

That was not what Hanzo had expected and it hurts more for it. He bites the inside of his cheek, holding the words he wants to say. _I want Genji safe. I want to remain in my home country. What do you even know of me beyond my name?_

A bit of the humor fades from the other man’s face. “Hey, look. We don’t have to.” He bites his lip, tripping over his words. “If you uh— t’be honest as _can_ be, I don’t exactly get it up easy if my partner’s not into it.”

Hanzo grimaces, leaning forward. A bit closer to McCree. He smells more of that cigarette smoke and something else that’s deeper, heavier.

“I am _not_ unwilling. I keep my word. Do you want your bosses to think you do not?”

There goes the rest of the cowboy’s humor. “No.”

Hanzo nods. “Good.”

“How much privacy do we have?” He glances at the door as he edges closer to Hanzo. Closer to the futon too.

“None. There are cameras. The walls are not thick.” His brow furrows. “Are you seeking an escape?”

“I’m seeking a way to do this with respect.”

Hanzo snorts, amused despite himself. “So you _can_ learn from your elders.”

The man grins, suddenly cocky. Showing his teeth.  
  


 

They’re nearing the end of the _event_ when Shimada reaches back with both strong arms and holds Jesse’s closed mouth against the side of his neck.

“Alpha, _bite_. Draw blood.”

He’s in no condition to refuse the order, too caught up in the excitement of the moment, the tight heat of the man beneath him, the rush of impending orgasm. He closes his eyes, opens his mouth, and—

 

He mentions it in passing to Reyes the next day when they have a single moment of privacy in the bathroom of their hotel room, clean of bugs.

“He made me bite him. Like, _made-made_. Is that—”

Reyes just laughs. “We are in the _bathroom_ , dumbass. Don’t make me teach you about sex when I have my dick out to piss. You’re old enough to know the birds and the bees.”

Jesse laughs along because _yup_. He’s… old enough. Rubs his neck and laughs in a way he hopes isn’t too awkward because he feels like something might have happened last night that he doesn’t understand.

Because that was weird, right? The biting and the— the rush he felt, like his entire _universe_ was focused on Hanzo. He’s had sex before and he’s certain it wasn’t bad sex, but this was… something else. Extraordinary. _Weird_.

“Get him to like you,” Reyes reminds him in a quiet voice on the way out of the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> krebkrebkreb.tumblr.com if you wanna see more mchanzo trash❤  
> i love everyone reading this


	2. Chapter 2

There are more meetings the day after the wedding. Jesse knew that would happen, but not that he was expected to attend them in yet another different outfit. By the time he’s layered up into this dress— “It’s a _kimono_ ,” several people have tried to explain to him over the last forty-eight hours— he’s mostly forgotten about the weirdness. He’s here to do his job.

Shimada sits beside him at the conference table this time, on the far end of the Blackwatch side of things.

Jesse keeps sneaking glances at his face.

He’s not too worried about it being obvious. He’s supposed to be a newlywed. He’ll play the part of being a bit smitten, a bit caught up in his new spouse, especially if it will make gathering information on him easier.

That’s why they picked him to do this. He’s good with people and even better at bullshitting his way through tricky situations. Life in Deadlock taught him the basics and Reyes nurtured the rest and turned it into a real skill. A skill he’s going to use to get the Shimada brothers to spill all the details on their father and their criminal empire. Hopefully.

Hanzo Shimada right now looks about as open as a locked door. His expression is stern and serious as he shuffles papers around, betraying no other emotion as he carefully reads along with what’s being discussed.

Jesse flips quickly to the same numbered sheet Shimada is looking at and immediately realizes his mistake. It’s all in Japanese, a jumble of alternately blocky and loopy characters nobody even bothered to ask him to study. A quick look at Gérard Lacroix across the table confirms that he’s following along just as easily as the guy beside him, but his page is in English. Jesse turns to the correct page and he can practically _feel_ the distaste in the way Shimada exhales a puff of air through his nose.

Had this guy been such a frosty bastard before today? Jesse searches back through his memories, trying to keep one ear on the arms deal they’re discussing at the same time. He hadn’t really been able to see the other man’s face beneath that towering white wedding hat during the ceremony. Before that they had only met once, an introduction the day before at this same conference table while they drank weird tea and discussed alphas and omegas with Sojiro Shimada. It had mostly gone over Jesse’s head in Japanese and French, the important parts translated for him by their assigned omnic interpreter. His struggle to understand what was happening had unfortunately superseded his paying attention to Hanzo.

This same interpreter now asks him a question and Jesse realizes he’s been caught getting lost in his thoughts.

“Pardon?” he asks politely.

The omnic’s servos emit a quiet, pleasant noise as they work to adjust its careful posture. “Shimada- _sama_ was asking if you found the dowry suitable to raising the next generation of Shimadas.”

Jesse has to school his face into something other than surprise.  Nothing about this having to seem so _real_ had been even _mentioned_ to him before yesterday, and he can’t even search about these customs online without his web history being tracked. This is just a fake wedding to get Hanzo a long-term visa out of Japan, not— He doesn’t have time to think about this.

“I trust my partner to know how to raise his children. I certainly don’t know enough yet about raising Japanese kids the right way, but I’m excited for him to teach me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Hanzo deliberately look away. But as the omnic translates, a small smile grows on Sojiro Shimada’s angular face. He says a few short words, none of which Jesse understands.

“Shimada- _sama_ is pleased by your answer,” the omnic says.

By now, he’s picked up on the fact that little of what’s being said is being translated literally. Are the Shimadas hiding something, or is it just a genuine language barrier? He sure wishes he knew.

“Thank you for letting him stay in your home until we leave the country. I’ve always thought the honeymoon period is important.” Lacroix adjusts his hands on the table, leaving his left hand and wedding ring in full view. It’s a nice touch, Jesse thinks, but a little overt. This is why they don’t work with Overwatch and their golden boys.

“Anything for his new son-in-law,” the omnic says after Sojiro responds. “Including finishing these discussions today.” An abrupt dismissal of this personal line of discussion from the man who opened it himself.

Jesse looks back at his folder of papers. Moving small arms into foreign countries and pretending it's all just trading in corporations. Gotta fund their operations somehow. At least Sojiro’s eyes are off him.

 

Several hours and twelve million dollars later, Jesse leaves the room dissatisfied. Something about knowing exactly how much money his entire future would be worth to his employers doesn’t sit right with him, even if this marriage isn’t actually real.

He scratches the back of his neck absently. He’s about to lean against the wall when a hand on his sleeve pulls him away.

“ _Idiot_ ,” says the owner of the hand and oh, of course it’s Hanzo. “Do not damage that.”

Shimada is as serious as he’s been the entire time, but Jesse is _honestly_ unsure if he’s being fucked with. It's a wall. He searches the shorter man’s face for any kind of tell that he may be exaggerating and finds only annoyance.

“Pardon?” Jesse asks. He feels like a broken record.

Hanzo sighs through his nose. “What you are about to lean against, it is a… a _fusuma_. It…” He pauses and then, face flushed, makes a small gesture with his hands, palms flat in the air at slightly different heights, like he’s... Oh! Like he’s sliding an invisible door closed.

It takes Jesse a second to realize that maybe he can’t remember the word. The other man's English seems so good.

“It could slide? I get you.”

“You could damage it.”

The flush is still prominent in Hanzo’s complexion, embarrassment high up on his cheekbones, but there’s also anger in the way his forehead wrinkles and his eyes narrow. It reminds him somehow of a dangerous beast woken from a nap.

“Sorry,” Jesse says to keep the peace. “I’ll keep away.”

“See that you do.”

Jesse pinches Hanzo’s sleeve between two fingers as he turns to go, barely catching him in time. The silk slips out of his fingers easily but the brief contact is enough to make Hanzo turn back around.

“Have dinner with me? A private dinner, so we can start to get to know each other.”

There’s another pause in the conversation and Hanzo’s gaze moves past him for several seconds, over his shoulder. Jesse wants to turn around, see what the other man is looking at, but he knows that would probably be a bad idea. Don’t rock the boat when it’s already adrift in stormy seas.

The silence drags on so long Jesse begins to worry Hanzo isn’t planning to answer. He begins to count: one full minute, then nearly two.

“I will be available for dinner tonight,” Hanzo finally says. His embarrassed blush is entirely gone, but the angry crease in his forehead stays.

He leaves down the hallway behind Jesse, opposite the way he had initially been going. Jesse turns to watch him leave but there’s nothing else in that direction. Not even a goddamn painting on the wall.

 

Back at their hotel, as Jesse gathers his things to prepare to stay the rest of the week at the Shimada fucking _castle_ , Reyes and Lacroix are both obviously pleased by his little dinner date.

“All of your lessons on etiquette won’t have gone to waste.”

Lacroix is just sitting in a chair drinking from a water bottle and Jesse isn’t sure why he wants to punch him. He usually kind of wants to punch him. He’s the only alpha Jesse knows besides himself, so maybe that’s part of it, or maybe it’s that he’s the only goddamn man in the entire goddamn world who’s found a way to drink water _smugly_.

“Yeah,” he forces himself to say instead of just decking the frenchman. “I won’t embarrass myself with chopsticks or pickin’ up the wrong bowl.”

“You’re gonna be a good husband for him, Jesse,” Reyes says. Jesse can see him roll his eyes.

They know there are no cameras in the hotel rooms, but there are audio recording devices throughout the suite. They have to be so careful about what they say and he knows his boss hates it. Jesse… well, he’s always thought this was a bit fun.

“I won’t disappoint him,” he says. _I’ll get you the information_ , he means.

He shoves the last of his electronics into his briefcase without all the care they might deserve and genuinely flinches as he hears a crack. Shit.

“Goddamn it, Jesse. What did you break?” Reyes asks. Extra shit.

He pulls out the hard metal edge of his tablet’s screen projector, wedged directly under the glass at the edge of his phone’s more traditional touchscreen. Somehow he’s managed to pry a whole chip of it up, sending a spiderweb of cracks up through the glass. Only a single stripe of the picture at the top remains, valiantly attempting to display the time and signal status. Everything else is black and green and magenta around the webbed cracks. Fuck.

When he holds the phone up to show the other men, Lacroix actually looks like he wants to punch Jesse as much as Jesse wants to punch him all the time.

Reyes comes over to his side and pulls Jesse’s notebook out of his briefcase He scribbles furiously before tearing the corner he’s written on off turning it towards him.

**YOU** **FUCKING IDIOT** ,  it reads. **WE CAN’T GET YOU A NEW ONE HERE WITH THE SECURITY SOFTWARE.**

Then he does something straight out of a spy movie and _actually eats the paper_ so the Shimadas can’t get their hands on it.

Lacroix takes two even breaths, then three. He’s already reaching for his own briefcase and presumably his own tablet or laptop as he’s speaking.

“You know, _Amélie_ once did the exact same thing. We should be able to get you a new one by Thursday.”

It’s Tuesday now. Jesse hopes what Gerard just said means his wife will be able to get them _something_ with a Blackwatch security package on it in the next couple of days. He just hopes the other man didn’t put so much emphasis on his wife’s name that it arouses suspicion.

“I am _so_ sorry, Mr. Lacroix,” he makes his mouth say.

“Stop wasting company money, boy,” Reyes says. Jesse doesn’t have to guess that he means _Stop fucking up_.

He wants to point out that he’s not the one fucking up here. Gerard is so wrapped up in his own stupid omega that he actually _likes_ and _understands_ that he keeps trying to flaunt her and jeopardize the mission—

Part of him recognizes that he’s being a little irrational, and that’s the part of him that quietly rearranges his papers and electronics and closes his briefcase.

“Excuse me,” he says, and storms off to the bathroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jesse's chapters grow only a little bit, but hanzo's are significantly longer; we'll be back next wednesday to spend the day with him and how wordy he can be  
> see you then~ (ﾉ´꒳`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus fact about this universe:  
> Before the Allied occupation of Japan (1945-52), the Japanese people had a much different view of alphas and omegas. During that time and the economic boom that followed, a shift in both economic status and cultural norms led to placing great value on female alphas and male omegas in same-gender marriages as adoptive parents.  
> As a result, this is an alternate universe Japan where the adoption rate for babies and children is absolutely ridiculous. Just bonkers.

There was no familiar cell phone alarm to greet Hanzo the morning after. No Genji to argue with. Just an unfamiliar man in an unfamiliar bed, in a room Hanzo knows is being watched.

He feels the prickly, unfamiliar sensation of fluids having dried on his skin. It tugs on the fine, delicate hairs on his upper thighs and just plain hurts where he has thicker hair on his scrotum and in the cleft of his rear. His own semen makes the futon beneath him crusty and unpleasant to touch, proof that this was a night of productive union. Whoever is being made to watch the security footage will be pleased.

Rolling over with a quiet grunt, Hanzo is surprised to find himself alone.

He had thought, after such a night, after initiating a bond—

Clearly he had been wrong.

He sits up, making it a point to ignore how much the bite on his neck hurts and the brown stain of dried blood on his, _only_ his pillow. Human teeth are not meant to break skin and the mouth plays home to an entire ecosystem of bacteria; he will need medical attention before he does anything else this morning.

He sniffs and frowns in distaste. First a bath and then medical attention becomes his revised to-do list. He will not have other people having to smell him like this. Moreover, he will not be smelling _himself_ like this a moment longer.

He’s a bit dizzy as he stands too fast but the bathroom isn’t more than a dozen steps away.

Seeing two stools to sit and wash and a luxurious bathtub large enough for two _hurts_ for some reason. Maybe the people who arranged his marriage hadn’t been prepared for him to marry a foreigner either.

Hanzo sits down on one of the wooden stools, filling a bucket with hot water. He has no clothes to remove so he just pours water over himself and reaches for the soap.

The water doesn’t splash the bite, but reaching pulls at the torn skin and he feels dizzy again.

Finally bringing a hand up to his neck, letting himself acknowledge it, Hanzo doesn’t feel the tender scabs against his fingertips where he expects to. The side of his neck is sore and probably bruised but the skin is unbroken. No, the bite is nearly two centimeters further back, on the back of his neck just below where the high collar of a shirt would sit. And… perhaps only one row of teeth, maybe the bottom?

He wishes for a hand mirror to examine himself with. Or, better, his cell phone to take a picture from a good angle. He’s never even heard of an alpha biting the _wrong place_ , too close to the spine and not deeper into the muscle. The increase in potential muscle mass is one of the few _benefits_ of being a male omega.

When an omega is bitten it is supposed to trigger a rush of hormones in both of them, leading to a reciprocating bite and the strong feelings that make the bond between an alpha and omega what it is. There had certainly been an intense, wonderful, fulfilling feeling of _something_ — but the reciprocating bite had not been offered.

_Why?_

Was this an intentional slight from Overwatch to his family? Bond the omega but don’t tie down the alpha? Did he not do enough research on Western culture and this is simply _normal_ for an American alpha to _do_ _?_

He dumps a bucketful of steaming water over his head to quiet his racing thoughts and opens his mouth to cry out at the tearing, agonizing, fiery pain that races down his spine as the water hits the injury. No real sound comes out. It’s a voiceless, breathy exhalation that echoes around the quiet bathroom like a shout. His eyes are open and wild and he pants until the pain finally recedes into an ache.

Hanzo doesn’t remember until the eyeliner stings his eyes that he’s still wearing makeup and that he’s ruined the hairstyle he was supposed to take down last night with sleep and water. He doesn’t _care._

Why must he continually be punished for Genji’s misdeeds in such _corporal ways_. Is leaving his home not punishment enough?

He brings a hand up to rub at his eyes before he can even begin to sniffle. _No. Not here, not now. Not ever._

There is a bottle of makeup remover beside the shampoo. He uses that despite the lack of a mirror and then scrubs himself all-over, dizziness and pain be damned.

When he is finished, the family doctor is already waiting in the other room.

 

Genji showing up immediately after McCree has asked for Hanzo’s presence at a private dinner complicates his answer.

They’re not far outside the conference room and Hanzo has been busy being appalled the other man didn’t know not to lean on a sliding room divider then horrified that he himself didn’t know the word for it in English. He already doesn’t know what to say in response to the request, but watching his little brother sneaking up behind McCree and mouthing _Do not go_ was not— he couldn’t— he can’t—

He desperately flicks his gaze up over McCree’s shoulder, trying as best he can to gesture into the distance. _Leave,_ he is trying to say. _I will deal with you later._

Genji slinks away and Hanzo loses track of how long he spends _not_ thinking about what he should say. Seconds tick by as his mind fills with static. The bite on his neck itches almost as much as it hurts.

Something in his unconscious mind must have been processing his decision for him, some reaction of hormones and proteins and electrical signals, because he finds himself with an answer despite not having any solid thoughts to cling to.

“I will be available for dinner tonight,” he says, then makes sure not to bother bowing on his way to find Genji and make him explain himself. Why should he waste the energy being hurt when McCree doesn’t return the gesture?

 

He finds Genji in his own bedroom— his _old_ bedroom. The bedroom from before he was married. He reminds himself to think that way as he steps through the door.

All of his belongings are still here; he hasn’t packed anything yet. Even his favorite wrist watch still lies undisturbed on the table where he left it before beginning to dress for the wedding.

“Brother,” Genji says, startling him out of his thoughts. “I heard you say yes. _Why?_ Won’t you spend the evening out in Hanamura with me?”

Hanzo opens his mouth and immediately shuts it again, incredulous. He must be going deaf. “That is why you wanted me to refuse?”

“Of course. We won’t get to spend much time together soon, and then none at all. I just thought—“

“You did not think. You put me in this situation yourself and now you expect me to put myself in a position where I could jeopardize everything by being so rude?”

Genji doesn’t even look chastised. Hanzo closes his eyes, a frustrated blink that lasts several seconds, and sighs through his nose.

Of course he doesn’t look chastised. His brother is a spoiled, foolish man. He’s never felt the weight of responsibility or _biology_ even though he should be preparing to take over from their father. All Genji has ever seen in Hanzo is an older brother who has the skills and the knowledge to manage the family business alone, not an omega who will someday leave his younger beta sibling to fend for himself.

Has he failed Genji? Is this actually his fault?

“Genji, I am leaving Japan in less than a week. I suggest you find more sensible ways to spend your time until I go. There is an auction next month you could be reviewing the details of but instead you—“

“You know I hate those. You know I see no sense or honor in buying and selling—“

“You do not have to like it to do your duty to this family!”

They’re just talking over one another now, angry and achingly familiar. Hanzo realizes, as his brother calls him heartless and cold, that he will actually _miss_ this. He will miss his family dearly, even these bad moments. He will miss Genji as much as he misses his home, his homeland, his customs, his language.

His attention drifts as he goes through the motions of the argument. As he reminds Genji about duty and family and how omegas inherit _nothing._ It’s the same argument he was missing this morning, the same argument they have every time Genji is forced to take any small sliver of responsibility onto his own shoulders. There is nothing that can be done about any of it. About Hanzo leaving or the weight that Genji must soon bear. There is never anything that can be done.

“I will follow you,” Genji says, a break in the tradition of their usual fights. “I will follow you and bring you home so that you can be where you belong.”

Hanzo is _horrified._ Some of it must show on his face because Genji quickly changes tactics.

“I will help you escape then. Take you away from that alpha and his captivity. Then can both go anywhere.”

“Genji, I am only moving from one cage to another. This family and our business cannot be allowed to fall apart. Why can you not _understand_?”

His brother stands, steps towards him. Gets in his face, a hand’s breadth away. He’s opening his mouth to speak, to say something, maybe to yell, when his nose wrinkles and his eyes widen in shock.

“I can smell the antiseptic from your neck,” Genji says. “He bit you.”

“Yes,” Hanzo answers. He knows it wasn’t a question. “You knew it needed to happen.”

“Let me see.”

Genji’s face is red with anger, still only a dozen centimeters from Hanzo’s. If he were an alpha or older or anyone other than his idiot, impetuous younger brother, Hanzo would have to show him the misplaced, aching wound.

“No,” he says, not moving away from Genji. Not giving the younger man a bit of space, a millimeter of victory. “If we have nothing else to discuss, you need to leave. I have packing to do and dinner preparations to make.”

Genji pokes him in the chest, fingertip digging into his sternum hard enough to hurt. A storm of emotions rages across the other man’s face and Hanzo briefly wonders what exactly he did to make the other man quite so furious with him.

“Enjoy your body making you fall in love with a monster who would make his partner bleed,” Genji says.

Hanzo can think of nothing in response, but it doesn’t matter. Genji shoves past him to leave the room, making an obvious attempt at trying to see down the neck of his kimono while doing it.

He sighs. Genji understands as little as he himself has to say.

 

Hanzo learns from one of the omnics that Genji has fled the castle to drink alone in the city. _Good,_ he thinks. _Let him be the problem of someone else for the night._

That he will be the problem of someone else for the rest of his life isn’t a thought he entertains for more than a moment while the doctor reapplies an ointment to his neck and hands him several capsules with prophylactic antibiotics in them.

“I should have started you on a course of this yesterday,” the doctor says. “I apologize.”

The thought that this pain, this steady ache down his spine could be from the beginning of an infection is so much a relief to Hanzo that he slouches in the office chair he’s sitting in. As long as nothing is visibly wrong with the bite, as long as it won’t leave a deformed scar. As long as there’s nothing wrong with _him._

“It is fine.”

Hanzo accepts a paper cup of water and quickly swallows the pills.

“I urge you caution letting your husband bite you again. Medical literature has shown that only the initial bite is necessary for a bond.”

“Email me that literature please,” Hanzo says as he adjusts his collar. “I would like to review a study myself.”

“Of course.”

Any polite response slips away from him in the wave of dizziness as he stands.

A different omnic than the one who told him about Genji escorts him to bathe before dinner. He’s brought not to his old room and his old bathroom but to where he’s staying until he leaves. It’s in a different part of the house, one that had been renovated after his mother’s death, and with a sinking feeling Hanzo realizes why.

This is a western-style room he is expected to live in. A carpet covers the floor and the large bed is a permanent piece of furniture in the room. Even the table and chairs are larger than what he’s used to, like his tall foreign husband.

Hanzo feels a stirring of genuine panic in his chest.

This unfamiliarity, the looming presence of things _just_ dissimilar to his normal experience, it is his entire future. He signed himself away for a lifetime of culture shock. And he hasn’t even left his home yet.

Like earlier after the meeting, trying to answer McCree’s question, he can’t think. Static in his mind and in his ears and he squeezes his eyes shut against the unfamiliar room and gulps for breath as he tries to find his way to one of those oppressively large chairs. It feels like he just can’t get enough _air_ , no matter how rapidly he gasps.

Warm hands find his shoulders and guide him into a chair.

He can’t understand the words being said between the omnic and the other person in the room. He can barely hear them speak over the hissing static and the rushing blood in his ears. The noises of his desperate, rapid gasps for breath.

“You are… excess respiration,” a deep voice tells him in halting, poorly accented Japanese, but his mind attaches to the words. “Slow.”

_Excess respiration_. He focuses on his new anchor, tracing each kanji over in his mind. One breath for each stroke works out and he focuses on thinking and counting carefully in his head as he breathes. _Ichi, ni, san..._ When he’s done he tries again, slower. Twelve strokes, then eight, then six.  Like he’s back in school learning to write. And then again. And again.

By the time his breathing has returned to normal, the shame has hit him. He knows an omnic doesn’t have warm hands and he knows no one in the employ of his family has such a terrible grasp of basic language skills.

Hanzo only hopes that this incident, this embarrassing loss of control can be written off as as a side effect from the mating bite, not his own incompetence.

He opens his eyes to find his husband sitting in the other chair, a respectful distance away. He’s leaning forward, elbows on his knees, expression… _worried_. The degree of open concern on Jesse McCree’s face is surprising from a stranger and Hanzo doesn’t have enough time to think about why it’s there.

“I am sorry,” he rasps with a surprisingly dry throat and mouth.

“Shit, don’t be. Want some water? Uh…” McCree looks to the omnic by the door who helpfully translates the question from English to Japanese for them.

Hanzo shakes his head. “No,” he says in English before glancing to the omnic. “No. You- you can leave.”

McCree looks a little hurt, gaze snapping away from Hanzo’s face to the floor, and it’s not until he begins to stand that he understands why. He quickly reaches out, brushing the backs of his fingers against the other man’s silk-covered knee before he can get too far.

“My father’s omnic. Is this not also your room? I will not kick you out.” He just wants the metal spy gone.

McCree hesitates but the omnic does not. Its feet clack quietly on the wooden floor of the hallway. Hanzo selfishly assumes it isn’t _rushing_ to tell his father what a disgrace he is being right now. How shamefully he is behaving. He cannot even fathom having to explain this to his father without time to think of a proper explanation.

The idea is enough to make it hard to breathe again.

“Hey, Shimada, hey. I’m staying. Take a deep breath for me.”

Hanzo isn’t prepared for the huge hand that strokes gently up his back right along his spine, the tingling feeling of _correctness_ and calm that surges through his body before rough fingers push against the bandage on his neck and _then_ — Then it both feels so _right_ and hurts so much—

“Stop,” he chokes out, lacking the ability, the _willpower_ to pull away.

McCree drops his hand immediately and the pain gets worse as all of the relief from the other man’s touch fades away. Hanzo wants to ask him to bring it back, _please just touch him again_ , but he grits his teeth and keeps his weak omega mouth shut. He will jeopardize his reputation no more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bonus fact about this fic:  
> i wanted to name it shoganai before mccree decided to get in on the party and make half the chapters about him
> 
> _speaking of mccree, see you friday with his pov and some dinner i said slow burn and i meant it_  
>  (ﾉ´³`)ﾉ♡


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus fact about this universe:  
> Japanese law has allowed women and omegas to inherit and manage their own property since the 12th century, in the Heian period.  
> Family businesses are usually passed down from father to son, excluding omegas. When a male omega is the eldest son, his brothers are looked to.

Jesse strides down the hallway, delighted to be allowed free reign in the castle. Free reign at least as it pertains to his ability to get to the room he’s supposed to be staying in. Probably because the entire place is full of cameras watching his every step. If they’re willing to watch him _have sex,_ they’re likely willing to watch just about anything. Maybe he has to worry about them watching him in the shower… Gross mob voyeurs.

Jesse doesn’t even have his phone to do some audio recording of his own. Reyes really had been right, calling him a fucking idiot.

He slides open the door to the bedroom he’s been directed to and almost backs out again, because there he is. There Shimada is, standing in the center of the room having what looks like a panic attack. He’s frozen, one hand out, breathing too fast and shaking all over.

Jesse isn’t exactly a complete stranger to panic attacks. Once or twice as a kid, back in his Deadlock days, he froze up on the field. Gunsmoke and blood, overloading his senses. Even in his time in Blackwatch, he’s seen a few of the less hardened Overwatch recruits panic in a crisis.

But he’s never seen this, panic in such a normal place.

Is this a thing that happens to Shimada a lot? Is this… a thing that happens to _omegas_ a lot?

Does he even _know_ any omegas?

Amélie Lacroix is the only name that comes to mind and they don’t exactly know each other. He wasn’t even invited to the wedding. But ballerinas go through a lot of training, right? And she must have nerves of steel if she’s being trusted to deliver a package while they’re all here on this mission.

He’s at Shimada’s side, already having decided to try to help, before he realizes there’s an omnic in the room.

“Shimada- _san_ , welcome. He has been expecting you.” It bows at the waist.

“Are you _broken_ ?” Jesse asks it, taking the real Shimada by the shoulders and steering him gently towards a chair. Holy shit, the other man’s lips are turning _blue_ . “How do I get him to calm down? How do I, uh— _hyperventilation._ How do I say he’s hyperventilating? How do I ask him to slow down?”

The omnic tells him and it’s few enough syllables that Jesse is pretty sure it can’t be right. But he doesn’t speak Japanese beyond ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’ so he gives it a try.

There’s a sort of comforting rhythm to it, even as slowly as Jesse has to say it, and maybe that helps Shimada. Jesse watches his face carefully, relieved as the blue leaves his lips and some healthy color returns to his face.

He doesn’t want to say anything else, careful of startling Shimada out of the pattern of slow breathing he’s got going on. Jesse counts the second each breath takes, _one, two, three…_ He’s pleased each one takes a little longer. Even through all of this, his back is so stiff and straight. What sort of pressure is this guy under?

There’s a beat of awkward, spellbinding silence where he’s just _watching_ the other man, before Shimada opens his eyes.

Jesse blinks, surprised to find the other man looking straight _at him._ He scoots forward a little in his chair, trying to keep that eye contact.

“I am sorry,” Shimada says.

_Why,_ Jesse wants to ask, _we’re pretending to be married, aren’t we?_ But quickly he realizes that crime bosses’ sons probably don’t show a lot of emotion anywhere.

He asks the poor guy if he wants water before realizing he doesn’t even know where the bathroom is or where to find a glass. He looks to the omnic, about to ask, but it just unhelpfully translates the question about water into Japanese.

“No,” Shimada says to him in English. “You can leave.”

Jesse can’t help but take it a bit personally. He just helped the guy out and he’s being asked to go—

Fingers brush his knee as he’s about to stand and he looks back up at Shimada’s face. When did he even look away?

“My father’s omnic,” Shimada is explaining. “Is this not also your room? I will not kick you out.”

The machine, the one that apparently couldn’t tell the difference between him and the man whose family it’s employed by, leaves. And jesse has no idea what to do now— until the other man starts to hyperventilate again, losing the bit of color he’s gained in his cheeks.

“Hey, Shimada,” Jesse says. He hopes he’s being calming. “Hey. I’m staying. Take a deep breath for me.”

He takes a chance, laying a hand on the other man’s back and stroking up as they both breathe in. The silk of the other man’s dress, kimono, whatever, feels fascinating against his palm. His fingers tingle when he stops at the top, accidentally slipping under the stiff folded collar. They stay there like that for a moment, breathing in sync—

“Stop,” Shimada commands him.

Jesse pulls his hand away quickly, scratching the back of his own neck. Digging the nails in, like that can stop the tingling that’s started there too. “Sorry.”

Silence stretches between them for a while. Jesse isn’t exactly counting this time. He’s worried now that he’s overstepped. If this _is_ something that happens a lot, should he have just let it go? Back out of the room before he was even noticed?

He doesn’t usually doubt himself like this. Then again, he’s never had to work with a mark who has seemed just as much a hardass as he is.

When Jesse finally drops his hand from his neck, he only does it because he’s starting to feel self-conscious. The pinch of his nails there feels—

“There are no cameras in here,” Shimada says suddenly.

“Pardon?”

“This room. In the interest of honesty, between husband and wife. You should know where you are being observed in this castle and there are no cameras in here.”

Jesse can’t help himself. He glances around the room, checking the corners around the ceiling and all the surfaces. Should he… Like, should he trust this?

“I have information,” Shimada is already saying, and Jesse feels his own heartbeat skip. But maybe he shouldn’t worry, because the sentence ends: “the doctor says you should not bit me again. He is emailing me literature. I will have it translated, if you wish to see…”

Jesse shakes his head immediately. “Why would I bite you again? I don’t want to hurt you. It was your idea in the first place.”

Shimada’s face contorts into something halfway between disbelief and outrage. “We would both be in trouble if you had not.”

There it is. There’s the icy sneer Jesse has been expecting.

“Yeah,” Jesse says. “Yeah, ‘course. I get it. Don’t you worry; I’d never do it again.”

He’s lying.

He remembers the feel of his teeth sliding around on the other man’s sweat-slicked skin. The taste of perfume and hair product and salt suddenly overpowered by the deep, heady taste of blood as his _feels_ the sound of the skin giving way and his bottom teeth sinking in. The way he’s never felt closer to another human being in his entire life.

He would do it again in a heartbeat, but not without permission.

He doesn’t really think it would be the same without permission.

Shimada sniffs, clearly something he’s doing for effect instead of because he needs to. It reminds Jesse of Lacroix and the way he sips his water, except about a million times less stupid and punchable.

“Why’d they watch us, last night?” At Shimada’s blank, questioning look, Jesse continues. “If there are gonna be no cameras in here, why did they need watch us then?”

“They watched our first night so they could be sure you claimed your omega,” Shimada says. He sounds unbothered. Dispassionate, like he’s talking about a business deal and not his own life. Maybe that’s how he thinks of it. ”It would not do for a conflict in our traditions lead to an illegitimate marriage.”

“You’re fine with that?”

“I have always known. I do my job, agent of Overwatch. Thank you for doing yours.”

Jesse just nods. What the fuck else is he supposed to do? Claim an omega? _Wife?_ He knows fuckall about Japanese traditions and maybe someone should have told him. Maybe he should have snuck a peek at Gérard’s wife’s neck or something? Maybe he could when she drops off his new phone?

He _feels_ for this man. This guy who has no idea he’s in a pretend marriage with an extrajudicial undercover-but-not conman.

He tries for a different topic.

“How is your brother taking all this? I haven’t even met him.”

“My brother?” Shimada’s face contorts uncomfortably. “Surely you would rather discuss what we will wear to dinner.”

“That bad, huh? What’s it like to have siblings, anyway?”

“You have none?” Shimada looks surprised for a second before apparently catching himself, reigning his expression back in to neutrality. “Of course. They must do a genome test early in America.”

Jesse chuckles, trying hard as he can to avoid a full belly laugh. This guy’s got it all wrong. “Nah. I didn’t get tested until I joined up with Overwatch when I was nearly twenty. My momma didn’t care what I was, as long as I was her boy.”

He’d asked about it only once and his mother’s vehement insistence that his secondary sex didn’t matter led to more schoolyard fights than anything else. When he had gone to school at all. And Deadlock Gang hadn’t exactly cared.

“My mother was very supportive as well. She did not see me as lesser, even though Genji is the alpha son.” Shimada sounds a bit wistful and a little bit sad.

Jesse is already shaking his head, opening his mouth before he’s through thinking. “You ain’t lesser. I don’t know you well, but you’re a strong man. I’m honored to sit here talking to you.”

Shimada _literally_ waves the compliment away, but that’s fine. Jesse can see something of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. That’s the kind of quick confidence work they picked him for. Some other alpha, some other _asshole_ , might have screwed this up.

 

It turns out they really _should_ have talked about what they’re wearing to dinner. He finds himself in the walk-in closet-slash-dressing-room, surrounded by gorgeous silk things on hangers and absolutely no idea which one he should wear or how to put it on.

He brushes his hand along the silks, frowning when he feels his rough, calloused fingertips catch on the delicate fibers. He bends over and checks quickly for damage, exhaling a soft sigh when he finds nothing visible to the naked eye.

There’s a chuckle from behind him.

“Dress comfortably. We are dining in here; I have just assured it.”

Jesse stands up, a little color in his cheeks, to see Shimada is standing in the doorway. He’s looking genuinely amused, more amused than Jesse has seen him so far. He kind of wishes it weren’t at the expense of his little embarrassment but he’ll take it as a start.

“It will be brought in half an hour. Help me untie this? It is difficult to reach,” Shimada says.

He approaches Jesse and turns around, gesturing to indicate the pillowy mound of fabric at his back that ties the wide, colorful belt around his waist. It’s made of the same sort of delicate, gorgeous silk that Jesse had just been admiring…

Jesse hesitates before touching it.

“I don’t wanna destroy anything. I don’t know where to begin.”

Shimada chuckles again. “Search for the knot tying the… I do not know how to describe it to you with a word you know. It is part of what is going around the entire middle. It should be in the center. Undo that and I can do the rest.”

Jesse reaches a hand in, hoping to exude one hundred percent of the confidence he doesn’t feel. It takes him a second of feeling around to realize he isn’t even near any knot at all. This guy is just too _short_ , and Jesse has to take a step closer and bend down a little before his fingers find what he’s searching for.

He doesn’t bother asking what kind of knot it is, figuring Shimada won’t know the english name. He reaches in with his other hand, tucking his head down while he works to untie it. His breath ruffles the soft hairs on the nape of the other man’s neck.

Is this why he made sure that Jesse wouldn’t bite him again? Because he would need Jesse’s help with this?

Jesse had needed more than one extra someone to help him into his clothes each time they made him dress up in this traditional stuff, and he hadn’t been in charge of disrobing himself when he had changed after the wedding or… or last night. And Shimada’s clothes are more extravagant and layered looking than his loaned ones.

He tugs the fabric loose at the same time he sees it. _Smells_ it, too.

A dark, purple splotch just visible under the edge of Shimada’s collar, coupled with the familiar scent of antibiotic ointment.

He steps away before he can say something stupid about how he’s sorry for biting the guy. Sorry for hurting him. Sorry for the tingle on the back of his own neck, the humming feeling in his teeth. Sorry for wanting to do it again.

“Thank you,” says Shimada.

“No problem,” Jesse says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _i know i promised you a dinner but next time. next time._  
>  _see you wednesday when hanzo will be back ◝(⑅•ᴗ•⑅)◜..°♡_  
>  remember you can find me @ [krebkrebkreb.tumblr.com](http://krebkrebkreb.tumblr.com) if you wanna see all the behind the scenes text posts☆


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick fact about this universe:  
> A team of French and Belgian scientists won the Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1973 for their work identifying the surprisingly subtle chromosomal differences between the secondary sexes.

McCree has had the mercy to leave him alone to recover from his bout of fear and shame, now that their little talk is done.

How was he supposed to explain why they were being watched. Could the man not figure it out on his own? They are pawns and chess masters make sure the pieces do not move without permission.

Hanzo slides the door open and half expects to encounter immediate resistance. The hallway is empty but he doesn’t need to wait long before there are footsteps off to his right. He drops his pack of cigarettes and the lighter back into his sleeve before anyone can find him.

“I am seeking dinner, not following Genji into town,” he says before he can even see who was sent in pursuit. His tone is biting and princely and _fed up_.

“I came to ask what you would like,” a voice responds, synthesized amusement modulating its tone.

Immediately, Hanzo is embarrassed. Ashamed; a little boy who doesn’t really know why his anger led him to pull the housecat’s tail. The omnic in the hallway with him is Kenshin, one of the few he knows by name. They are not close but Hanzo at least likes this one. It doesn’t deserve to be snapped at.

“I am sorry,” he says.

“I have already erased it from my memory banks,” says Kenshin. Hanzo smiles, grateful for the sentiment. “It was thought you would like your dinner in private tonight. I came to ask if you would like a normal meal or something more to suit foreign tastes.”

Hanzo knows this isn’t the full truth. He was heard accepting McCree’s invitation after the meeting and now they have sent someone to make sure he doesn’t run from it. But once again, he appreciates the sentiment. The implication that he is _not_ not a prisoner in his own home, despite the truth of what he said to Genji. A gilded cage is still a cage.

“A normal meal is fine,” Hanzo says. “We will take it at the table in here.”

Kenshin bows, low enough to show respect. Not low enough to show enough. “Of course. Less than an hour, Shimada- _sama._ ”

He finds himself watched by steely robotic eyes until he goes back inside the room, closing the door behind him and coming face to face with—

With an empty room. Neither chair is occupied, the bed is empty, the window is closed. Where is McCree?

The closet door is open and he takes a peek.

There is his new husband, bent over and staring at one of his finer kimonos. Does McCree recognize it as one of the ones that were hanging up on display last night? The man’s posture is so guarded and careful as he reaches out to touch the fabric.

It gives Hanzo a terrible idea. An idea so awful it drives a genuine laugh out of him. If Genji can do whatever he wants, Hanzo will test his own theories and steal a bit of relief for himself.

“Dress comfortably,” Hanzo says. “We are dining in here; I have just assured it.”

McCree stands up and spins around. His dark cheeks are darker than usual and Hanzo doesn’t take the time to figure out why.

“It will be brought soon. Help me untie this? It is difficult to reach." His heart hammers in his chest as he steps towards McCree, dizziness chasing him as he turns his back towards the other man.

“I don’t wanna destroy anything,” McCree says suddenly. “I don’t know where to begin.”

Hanzo suddenly remembers a part of last night he thought he had forgotten. The same man telling him, _I’m seeking a way to do this with respect._ He chuckles again, this time at himself. How could he have been so panicked earlier? How can he think this is such a big risk now? McCree has proven himself nothing but respectful and almost kind.

Hanzo decides he trusts him.

This trust is surely due to hormones. He knows his body is over-producing oxytocin because of the bite.

He wonders if the _why_ matters, when it’s making it easier.

“Search for the knot tying the… I do not know how to describe it to you with a word you know. It is part of what is going around the entire middle. It should be in the center. Undo that and I can do the rest.”

Hanzo hasn’t even untied the _obijime_ in the front or specified which knot in the back. All of them are ones he could untie by himself. It pains him exactly not at all to use the other man’s ignorance of his culture against him.

A single hand on his back but McCree cannot reach. Breath on his neck as the other man bends down and…

And he is still in pain.

Had he been wrong? Surely it had been the act of touch earlier that had doused the fire the embers of the other man’s teeth had left burning in Hanzo’s skin.

Wasn’t it enough Hanzo had to trick his new husband for a simple touch on the first day of their marriage?

He allows himself to stew in self-doubt. He doesn’t focus on what the hands behind him are doing or how nice the breath on his neck feels.

Then, suddenly, it works. Like a spell was lifted he can breathe freely again, the weight and the tearing from the bite are gone from his being nearly entirely.

“Thank you,” Hanzo breathes.

“No problem,” McCree says, pulling away—

Hanzo inhales sharply as the ache returns, like it had never been gone at all.

“Are you now going to stand here and watch me undress?” he asks. Unlike when speaking to Kenshin, he intends to sound exactly as harsh as his words come off. He is _angry_ to be in pain again.

McCree takes several quick steps away, towards the closet door and the main room. He looks embarrassed when he gets there, hiding his eyes with one of his gigantic, rough hands. Hanzo can remember how it felt on his skin.

“No,” McCree says.

Hanzo doesn’t tap his fingers impatiently or ask McCree what he is waiting for but it is close.

McCree turns to leave and turns back again. Hanzo recognizes the darkness in his cheek as an actual, honest blush. “Hey, I, uh. I could use a little help myself? I don’t know how to get out of this mess on my own.”

He gestures down his front, fingers pausing for a moment to fiddle with the knot keeping his _haori_ closed.

“You were given no instruction?” He does not expect a foreigner to know _kitsuki_ , but to have left the man with no knowledge at all? It struck him as almost cruel.

McCree shrugs. “Not a bit. I don’t understand anything, anyway. You’re the best conversationalist I’ve met here.”

Hanzo considers this. The slight towards his family wrapped inside the obvious compliment. The genuine embarrassment he seems to be experiencing. He’s just another soul being tossed into a fate he most likely did not choose. He certainly does not seem prepared for it.

Once again he decides he trusts Jesse McCree.

“I will assist you,” he allows, “but after I am decent. I will need to bathe as well.”

He gets the message and leaves, but Hanzo has to go close the door himself.  
  


McCree hangs the garment carefully on the offered hanger, apparently caring nothing for the fact that he is clad only in his short white _juban_ and undershorts. “Is this kinda thing normal?”

Hanzo makes a soft “hn” noise with an upward inflection, confused. He carefully keeps his eyes above the level of the other man’s shoulders, wanting to grant McCree the same politeness he himself has been shown.

“The clothes. I mean right now you’re wearin’...” He gestures at Hanzo’s shirt, a loose and black logo tee beneath an even looser grey cardigan. “Hell, I love that band.”

“We do not dress in national clothing at all times or every day, no. I do not. It would be inconvenient.”

McCree takes in all of the silks surrounding them, glancing around and then up at the boxes neatly arranged on shelves. “Coulda fooled me,” he says. “I know fuckall—” At Hanzo’s expression he stops, clearly reconsiders. “Scuse me, _little_ about your traditions.”

“You are expected to adopt a Japanese child and raise it to be a full Shimada heir. This is something you must learn.”

There is silence for a few moments as they stare at each other. Jesse McCree’s eyes are more pupil than iris, so much so that Hanzo cannot even pick out their proper color. Brown? A dark, stormy grey hidden in the shadow of his abundant lashes?

“Maybe you can teach me,” he says.

Hanzo considers this. Considers how incredibly _other_ the man is, how they have only known each other two days. Considers excluding him from raising the next Shimada entirely. McCree has pushed twice now for involvement. Is it even reasonable to expect free reign over his own parenting decisions?

Does he even want that? He is being forced to take this burden; must he shoulder it alone?

“Maybe I can,” Hanzo says.

  


Dinner is delivered not long after. The same omnic from the hallway comes in with two trays, balanced perfectly on one hand.

Hanzo appreciates that the most from their mechanical employees. They have skills he never will, with his flesh and bones and human senses. That they will agree to perform these tasks, tasks Hanzo believes are ultimately unworthy of them, is somewhat of a blessing.

Even if it is just an excuse to disguise spying. Kenshin is his father’s employee, not his friend.

They eat sitting side by side at the four-person table, facing the window. McCree asks him a few questions— his favorite color, his favorite kind of music, if he actually ate raw fish. Hanzo answers them readily and politely, but his mind doesn’t linger on what he’s saying.

His mind isn’t really focused on anything. The fish is good. The rice tastes as it always has. The trees outside are beautiful.

It occurs to him suddenly, in the middle of pulling a piece of mackerel away from the skin, that he is an idiot. The relief from pain is not from being touched; it is hormonal. Life isn’t some tale with magic: there are matters of biology to deal with.

He is a buffoon.

Everything in his head has been confused. For nearly a full day now he has been unable to separate his emotions from clear, rational thought. Earlier he had thought there would be no relief except touch and he might have to embarrass himself to get it.

Now, sitting thirty centimeters from the other man as they eat, he feels himself and in control again. As capable of facing his future with dignity as he had been yesterday.

“What’s this?” McCree asks, using his chopsticks as a pair to gesture to one of his bowls.

Hanzo has to sit up a bit to see what he’s referring to. He’s been slouching a little, a combination of relaxation and the high back of the chair he’s sitting in. His loose pants too allow for greater freedom of movement than he’s had in what feels like a lifetime. Perhaps he should not judge McCree too harshly for how uncomfortable he was in kimono.

“ _Sunomono.”_ No recognition. Of course. “It… vinegared cucumbers, tossed with sugar and soy sauce. Sometimes other things. This looks like it only has sesame seeds.”

“Do you like it?”

Hanzo tilts his head, turning in his chair to look at the other man. “Is that going to determine if you eat it or not?”

McCree laughs. “I’m just curious; I clean my plate anyway. But I wanna know what _you_ like, Shimada- _san_.”

“Hanzo.”

The man’s big hand freezes on the way to pick up the bowl holding the cucumber salad. “Pardon?”

“My given name is Hanzo. You may call me that sometimes, in private.”

Silence stretches between them. McCree lifts the bowl after an eternally long few seconds but Hanzo already feels as though maybe it was a mistake. He doesn’t know how to behave in this sort of situation.

There are books to guide omegas with normal families, with normal lives through the process of _omiai_ and marriage to an alpha. But this wasn’t truly _omiai_ and none of this is normal. There is no universal book of rules that will apply to them.

“I’ll do it if you’ll do something for me.”

Hanzo raises his eyebrows, interested in an end to this painful awkwardness. “What would that be?”

“Call me Jesse sometimes. In private.”

Hanzo looks at the other man’s face. He had expected to be asked… he did not know. This was incredibly reasonable.

McCree is smiling. His eyes are definitely brown and they crinkle at the corners.

A part of Hanzo wants the moment to remain tense. He imagines he can feel his brain manufacturing the endorphins that are making it feel good to smile back. It’s all a biochemical process.

He still doesn’t know if that matters or not.

“That would be acceptable, Jesse.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to every amazing person with a blog about kimonos i did so much research and wound up not even using the part that involved most of it°ᵕ°♡
> 
> ハッピーバレンタインデー(´ε｀ )♡  
> jesse and i will see you friday, if my hands stay well enough to type up edits to the rest of the chapter. if not, expect the update sometime over the weekend maybe? my immune system is being a fickle beast.


	6. Chapter 6

Dressed in a pair of slacks and a normal shirt, Jesse feels himself again. Yeah, he’s without shoes and his hat, but he even has a bandana tied around his neck again. No one is trying to make him play dress-up. He may not have a weapon on him but he can be Jesse McCree, gunslinger and operative and all-around not man-eating monster. Not someone who is still thinking about the taste and the smell and the feel of blood on his teeth.

He can’t get it out of his head, even as he sits beside Shimada and they eat from identical trays of delicious looking food. Jesse can’t name any of it except maybe the rice, but none of it sets off alarm bells. He’s even proficient enough with the chopsticks to get things to his mouth effortlessly, a good thing since they’re the only provided utensil.

There are trees outside the window, with pale green leaves and branches that seem to grow crooked for no reason. So unlike the shrubland grasses he knew, but still such a similar color even here on the other side of the world.

“What’s your favorite color?” Jesse asks. It feels like a safe enough question to begin dinner with, and he finds himself suddenly curious.

“Orange,” Shimada says. It doesn’t take him long to consider the question, despite it coming from silence. “But I do not mind blue.”

Jesse’s mind moves too easily to the closest thing to blue he’s seen the other man in. That purple nightdress. It had been entirely too feminine, he was starting to gather that it might be a  _ thing  _ here, omegas and femininity, but the man had looked  _ beautiful. _ The way the candlelight wrapped around his features and made his black hair and eyes shine…

He takes a bite of fish, trying to banish the thoughts.

“Do you eat a lot of this?”

“Hm?” Shimada briefly takes his attention from the window to glance at Jesse.

“This, uh… the fish. I’m not really culinarily adventurous. I’ve heard some people here eat it raw. One of my bosses, Lacroix, he says he loves sushi.”

He sees the corner of Shimada’s mouth lift in a small smile. Maybe it’s actually a smirk. A smirk would look good on the guy’s face. Natural.

“Sushi is delicious, but you should know when it is fish by itself it is sashimi. Maybe you can inform the frenchman of that.”

Maybe it’s good, Jesse thinks, that he’s not recording this. He can be looser with his technique, without worry that everything they say will be transcribed and left in an archive of information on Hanzo Shimada, forever.

“That would be a sight,” he says, embracing his freedom, “seein’ him corrected by a junior agent.”

“You seem to not care for each other.”

“You can tell?” Jesse grins as he picks up his rice. “It’s only been a few years since I got put on doing interesting stuff like this.” All part of his cover story in Overwatch; his Blackwatch work has been happening since they picked him up in the desert and Reyes saved him from rotting in prison with the rest of Deadlock. He’s no junior agent at all.

“And yet you are trusted here.” The statement sounds halfway between a question and an accusation.

“Would you want the alpha with you to be Lacroix?”

Shimada stares out the window at the trees as they move in the wind.

Jesse tries another question.

“What about music?”

“What  _ about _ music?” Shimada responds, cool tone already becoming familiar to Jesse.

“What kind do you like? I mean, your shirt surprised me. Didn’t figure you for a fan of rock and roll.”

“My tastes are not entirely traditional.” There’s a pause as they eat. A beat of silence while Shimada takes a bite of something greener than the trees outside. “Does that disappoint you?”

Jessee grins. Is he getting to see the real Hanzo here? “Nah. Is it gonna disappoint you that mine are?”

Shimada’s eyebrows raise even though he doesn’t look back over at Jesse. “What is traditional to… you?”

He takes a breath, playing up being insulted even though it does sting a little. “Come on now. I know America ain’t exactly ancient but we gave birth to rock music. Country western too!”

“Country… western.” Shimada says the words speculatively, like he’s trying out how they feel in his mouth. “You are a classic cowboy, aren’t you?”

“I’m more like James Bond,” says Jesse. A little defensive. A little strong with that defense, desperate to divorce himself from the desert in this man’s mind. “Debonair and charming.” He doesn’t mention how much he misses his hat right now.

“I enjoy jazz more than any of this,” Shimada says, returning to their original topic.  _ Hopefully _ returning to their original topic, Jesse thinks, and not intending it as an insult to his conversational skills.

“Jazz ain’t bad, I guess,” Jesse says.

He’s considering what he knows about music. Considering how jazz sounds and how the man beside him moves and behaves. Even Shimada’s anger and panic have a place in some of the more frenetic pieces he’s heard. Of course this man likes jazz: this man _is_ jazz.

Before he braves the same green vegetable salad looking thing Shimada is eating, Jesse picks up his chopsticks and gestures to the bowl containing it. “What’s this?” he asks.

“ _ Sunomono,” _ Shimada responds. Before Jesse can ask him to explain the foreign word, he already is. “It… vinegared cucumbers, tossed with sugar and soy sauce. Sometimes other things. This looks like it only has sesame seeds.”

Sounds… well, it sounds delicious.

“Do you like it?” Jesse wonders out loud.

Shimada tilts his head, turning towards him in his chair like this is important. “Is that going to determine if you eat it or not?”

He can’t stop a chuckle from bursting out of his chest. “I’m just curious; I clean my plate anyway. But I wanna know what  _ you _ like, Shimada- _ san.” _

“Hanzo,” Shimada says, after barely half a breath has passed since Jesse spoke.

Jesse feels his hand lock up halfway to picking up his little bowl of  _ sunomono.  _ “Pardon?”

“My given name is Hanzo. You may call me that sometimes, in private.”

Jesse lifts his bowl but doesn’t eat yet, wheels turning in his head. This is getting him closer to exactly what he needs.

“I’ll do it,” he says, “if you do something for me.”

“What would that be?” is Shimada’s measured response.

“Call me Jesse sometimes. In private.” He smiles. Shows his teeth in that charming way he knows makes women, men, whomever fall all over him. He keeps his voice low, careful, just the friendly side of sultry.

He knows it’s going to work. He knows he’s got him.

“That would be acceptable, Jesse,” Shimada says.

Bang falls his target, like he’s on the shooting range or any of the missions he’s run before. His lips and teeth and neck tingle and there’s a low buzzing in his head.

He takes a bite of cucumber to distract himself.

  
  
  


Bedtime comes too and with it brings more struggles for Jesse. There’s only one bed. Is he supposed to wear something special? Wear… nothing at all?

He hadn’t been lying, last night. He will not force Shimada into sex he’s uncomfortable with, even though he feels a strange drive to be as close as possible to the other man. It still disgusts him that they had been recorded.

Shimada emerges from the closet, wearing a similar sort of nightdress as the night before over... a t-shirt and pants? Jesse swallows tensely from his spot standing beside the bed, reaching up to fiddle with the bandana knot at the back of his neck.

“What are you doing?” comes the man’s puzzled voice as he stares at Jesse from the closet doorway.

“Uh…” What does he say? Fuck, what does he say.

“Your suitcases should be in the closet. Find your sleeping clothes, but please bathe if you wish to join me in bed. I like to read with the light on for some time before I sleep.” Everything Shimada says sounds serious and final and a little bit fed up.

“I can sleep on the floor,” Jesse says. “Maybe even the bathtub?”

Shimada raises his princely eyebrows. “And when someone comes in and sees husband and wife not in bed together? The only bed provided?”

So Jesse nods and walks into the bathroom to bathe.

That was… easy?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dinner, in its entirety, at last♡  
> it's not late if i upload before midnight, right? sorry for no worldbuilding fact; i'm not doing so hot this week.
> 
> hanzo and i will be in again on wednesday  
> only took three weeks to get through 24 entire hours!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we are officially back on schedule!!  
> thank you for the beta read. you know who you are and you know i love you extra for it.

When bedtime comes, Hanzo is unsurprised by how little work it takes to get the other man to sleep beside him. His argument is logical and plain: avoid trouble with their superiors. It is good that McCree has a sensible head on his shoulders. Admirable, even. Almost.

He visits the doctor again while McCree bathes and then takes time in the bathroom himself, carefully avoiding water splashing the fresh bandage on his neck. The rest of his skin still stings, too sensitive at the touch of the soap and the feeling of the water, the heat. But he breathes and lets the moment pass.

All moments pass, he reminds himself. This painful moment in his life will too pass.

They’re dressed the same: sensible tees and loose pants. Hanzo wonders if he set a standard earlier. McCree doesn’t make any sexual attempts towards him, not even twitching a hand towards the hem of either of their shirts. He’s relieved, he decides. McCree is attractive but he is relieved.

He lies on his back after the lights are out and moves through kendo footwork in his head as a distraction, focusing all of himself on the perfection of the imaginary movements. The man beside him radiates heat into the mattress and each phantom strike of the bamboo sword pulls it further into his own body.

As the pain slips away from his neck, he begins to dream.  


 

_The newborn in his arms is tiny, with fever-hot skin and hair darker than the night. His fingers turn to ash when he strokes its face and come away normal again, healed and human and motherly._

_It smacks its lips several times, the way babies do. Playing with its features. Figuring out the world. Hanzo is not surprised to see it has tiny, gleaming black teeth._

_Genji, croucing on the ceiling, does not react. Slits covered in crooked white spikes zigzag across his face and he speaks to Hanzo in French, a language neither of them are fluent in. It makes sense anyway._

_“Do you think she’ll like cucumber?” His little brother asks._

_“We both do.”_

_“But will she?”_

_Hanzo leaves a small sigh, watching the air ruffle his daughter’s hair. “She will find out.”_

  


Hanzo wakes alone in the middle of the night. Everything is stiff, like he hasn’t turned over or even moved since he fell asleep.

Cool air blows in from the window, scented like grass clippings and cigarette smoke.

Hanzo clenches his fists, forcing away the stillness that has settled in his bones, bringing back blood flow before he sits up. Rolling his shoulders sends a shock of pain down his back and he hisses, an offended _ow_ spilling from his lips. _Itakattayo._

“Shit,” comes a voice from near the window. “Didn’t mean to offend you with the smoke.”

“No,” Hanzo says, irritated. “That meant— never mind. It was not directed at you.”

“Still. If I woke you up, I’m sorry.”

He aligns his aching back with the headboard. “You did not. May I smoke with you?” He knows it’s risky to ask, bad for his health, but he aches for the nicotine to relieve his stress almost as much as literally aches for the closeness to relieve his pain.

“You smoke?” McCree sounds surprised. “You know, these’ll—“

“Kill me someday. Yes.” Hanzo slides his legs off the side of the bed, intending to find the sleeve he left a pack in yesterday. The dizziness of moving leaves him faster the closer to McCree he is. It is fortunate that the man is close to the closet: Hanzo appreciates his luck.

“Where are you goin’? Here,” McCree says, sounding confused and a little offended.

Hanzo is surprised by an offer of one of a different kind of cigarette, sticking from the pack in McCree’s band. He’s got a lighter held out too, bright red.

“Thank you,” Hanzo says, formally.

McCree obviously doesn’t know enough to call him on his formality. He just hands over the cigarette with a small smile. “Welcome. Trouble sleeping, huh?”

“Hn,” is Hanzo’s eloquent response.

While the cigarette is being lit by McCree’s red lighter, he can breathe and think a little more easily. He tries to reason that it’s still receding stiffness but he knows he is smarter than to believe that lie.

 

“The trees out there,” McCree asks after they've been smoking in silence for a time, “do they get fruit?”

“Cherries.” Hanzo wishes he knew how to compliment the other man for his astute observation.

“Knew it. They remind me of apple.” There’s a smile on his face.

“Do you have a history with apple trees?”

McCree chuckles. “Not like a farm or anything, but I climbed a few in my day. Fell out of a few too.”

“Me too.” Remembers breaking his arm. His mother’s concerned fury about her baby boy.

“So that’s not… you don’t have to be like a girl then? You don’t have to act all…”

McCree trails off and Hanzo actually has to consider what he could mean. Is he _racist?_

“What exactly have you been _taught_ about Japanese omegas?” Hanzo asks. He is taken aback, tone harsh. “We are not submissive with no agency. We can behave as any citizen can, man or woman. Girls climb trees.”

The stillness, the darkness of the night keeps him calmer and restrained. He doesn’t flip with anger like he might with anyo— in any other context he would want to lash out, less attempted politeness and more outright rudeness at the insult.

“Sorry, Hanzo,” McCree says, genuinely contrite. “Nobody taught me anything. I’m learning on my feet here. If you could help me out—“

Hanzo interrupts him before he can unknowingly do it further, before McCree can expose himself to family secrets he isn’t ready for. Isn’t trusted enough for. “The Shimada are an old family. Matters of inheritance proceed in a very traditional way. You have seen that, but I am very much a man.”

There’s a pause between them for a matter of a few seconds before McCree laughs.

“Thank Christ. My tastes are gayer than a Pride parade. And I spent a second really worried… well.”

After Hanzo catches up, realizes this isn’t going where he thought it was, he ashes his cigarette far over the windowsill with a small smile. “I think I can understand your concern, Jesse.”

The man smiles as his name is used. Hanzo’s neck barely hurts at all, standing this close.

“Is that because”—he inhales, taking through the smoke with a deep voice —“you’re an omega? That you’d want a man?”

Hanzo shrugs. He doesn’t know. “Maybe. I know that it makes my… how do you say it. My biological drive to nurture higher. A nesting mammal. I do not mind that.”

McCree’s chest rumbles with a quiet laugh. “Maybe this is an awkward time to ask, but you think all alphas are just mean killers? Like, hunters that leave the nest? You think I’d be an unfit nurturer?”

He feels the draw of a bow in his muscles, summoned by memory. The weight of a sword. The years of training. Biology defined none of that for him. Being an omega has never stopped him from taking a life; why should an alpha need to be a killer.

“Of course not.”

But thinking must have given too much of a pause, and McCree is chuckling again. Quiet. He could almost sound sad, but Hanzo doesn’t know him that well yet. “I’d never hurt my—husband? Wife? Whatever.”

“Legally a wife.” He inhales from his cigarette.

“Right,” McCree says, sounding awed. “The goddamn dowry.”

Hanzo chuckles. “Yes. The ‘goddamn dowry’.”

He ashes his cigarette, nearly gone, and Hanzo is struck with a bit of panic at the thought of him leaving. Being no stranger to pain doesn’t mean he foolishly invites it.

“Tell me about that other thing you said. The Oregon Trail. Dowries were used then?”

McCree grabs another cigarette from the pack. Flicks his lighter. Success blossoms in Hanzo’s chest. “You didn’t do much American History in school, huh?”

“I had other issues to attend with.” Mathematics. Classical history. Electronics. Literature. Arms deals. Human trafficking. Martial arts. Language study. Weapon training. Keeping his brother on a leash. “Will you share?”

A laugh booms from McCree’s chest, too loud for the quiet night. Insects outside scatter. “Sure I’ll share. It’s part of the Old West, you know. That’s part of my favorite.”

“You said you were not a cowboy.”

McCree laughs again, but the insects are already scared away. They spend the next hour, longer, talking and occasionally smoking. Hanzo thinks he understands at least some of the reasons people would leave everything for a dangerous journey into the near unknown.

It’s… nice.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i still have a migraine and i can’t see out most of my right eye but i love you guys so much thank you for still reading♡


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fact about this omegaverse:  
> Before the invention of type testing, an alpha or omega in a small community may have gone their entire lives without feeling the urge to claim a mate.

_What a goddamn day,_ Jesse thinks, leaning on the windowsill. The trees are blue and grey in the night and his fingers glow orange with the light of a cigarette. _What a goddamn fuckin’ day._

He tries to blow the smoke away from the room and the early summer breeze aids him, ruffling a string that hangs from an eave nearby. Somewhere in the distance there’s a wind chime. It’s… nice, this foreign place. He could get used to this.

The meeting, though. Spending all day negotiating. And then his fuck up at the hotel and then Shimada…

Hanzo isn’t a bad guy, on the surface. He’s been already even cracking from the frosty stuff, showing sort of an inside that doesn’t feel like a crazed, heartless murderer.

Jesse knows the list of suspected crimes. He’s read the sheet. There are probably more, committed by the family and sanctioned by him or even—

_Fuck,_  Jesse thinks, feeling the trigger on his finger. _I’m a murderer too._

A noise from the bed gets his attention, some sort of grumbled displeasure. He blows the contents of his lungs as far away as it will get.

“Shit,” he says with his next breath of clean air. “Didn’t mean to offend you with the smoke.”

“No, that meant— Never mind. It was not directed at you.” Shimada sounds kind of angry, a tired hint of of the same beast Jesse noticed earlier.

“Still,” Jesse says, trying to hang on to the peace he’s found in this dark, quiet night. “If I woke you up, I’m sorry.”

Shimada sits up, back against the headboard. He’s in the middle of the bed, right where he took up residence when Jesse left. There’s something princely about him sitting there like he’s holding court for an audience of one.

“You did not,” he says, sounding absolutely _finished_  with this conversation. Jesse is about to turn back to the window when Shimada asks him, “May I smoke with you?”

“You smoke? You know, these’ll—”

He knows he shouldn’t have said that, knew it’s a bad idea as soon as he started saying it, but he’s so _surprised_ this athletic, genuinely really healthy seeming guy would pollute his body like this. But anybody would have heard it before, and any big time crime guy like this has to have lots of doctors around to say it.

“Kill me someday. Yes.”

Shimada swings his legs over the edge of the bed. He’s walking away from it but also away from Jesse.

Jesse holds out the pack of cigarettes, a little impatient with this strangeness.

“Where are you going? Here.” He grabs his lighter from the windowsill and offers that too. And a smile. Full service, all the charm.

“Thank you,” Shimada says, with a weird, stiff bow.

There’s still about four feet between them and it’s… well, it’s awkward. Jesse pulls a cigarette from the pack and takes a step, bridges the distances between their bodies with his arm, putting it right in Shimada’s hand. Their fingers touch and for a second so tense he can almost hear it, their eyes meet.

Jesse blinks a few times. “Welcome. Trouble sleeping?”

“Hn,” Hanzo says. Did he feel that too?

Jesse blinks again, lighting the cigarette as it dangles between Hanzo’s lips.

He breathes in and Jesse can’t look away until the other man does, tracking the shadows in the dark flick of his eyes. He can feel his own heartbeat in his shoulders and back. He rolls them, letting this weird tightness go.

They look back out at the trees and the power lines behind them, their smoke mixing into a haze of dark and clouds. The more he looks, the less the place looks unfamiliar. The angles of the architecture is subtly wrong, but there are still goddamn trees and grass.

“The trees out there,” he asks, “do they get fruit?”

“Cherries.”

“Knew it. They remind me of apple.” There’s a little bit of smugness in the way he says it. He really wasn’t sure he was right, but it’s great to get to prove some sort of worthiness here.

“Do you have a history with apples?”

He chuckles. “Not like a farm or anything, but I climbed a few in my day. Fell out of a few too.”

“Me too.”

“So that’s not… you don’t have to be like a girl then? You don’t have to act all…”

He’s genuinely embarrassed by his ignorance.

“What exactly have you been _taught_ about Japanese omegas? We are not submissive with no agency. We can behave as any citizen can, man or woman. Girls climb trees.”

“Sorry, Hanzo,” Jesse says. Fuck, he needs to keep this peace. He really wants to keep it. “Nobody taught me anything. I’m learning on my feet here. If you could help me out—”

Hanzo cuts him off and Jesse realizes they’re standing so close he can clearly see the whites of his eyes, even in the shadow. “The Shimada are an old family. Matters of inheritance proceed in a very traditional way. You have seen that, but I am very much still a man.”

His mind reels at the images that conjures, bare skin and heady scents and yes, Hanzo is definitely still a man.

He’s relieved. A breath passes between them and then he laughs.

“Thank Christ. My tastes are gayer than a Pride parade. And I spent a second really worried… well.” It had been fleeting and panicked when he first saw that white kimono and all that makeup, but then he remembered what was going on and the papers he’d signed. Shimada Hanzo. 25 years old. Omega, male.

Hanzo ashes his cigarette far over the windowsill, a smile at the corners of his lips. “I think I can understand your concern, Jesse.”

“Is it because you’re an omega? That you’d want a man?”

He regrets saying it immediately. Why would it when he’s an alpha and likes men? He’s got more damn common sense than that.

But Hanzo has the grace to ignore his blunder and answers, shrugging. Foregoing eye contact to watch the trees. “Maybe. I know that it makes my…” He pauses and blinks once, slowly. “How do you say it, my biological drive to nurture higher. A nesting mammal. I do not mind that.”

McCree chuckles. Something kind of absurd occurs to him and he stupidly voices it.

“Maybe this is an awkward time to ask, but do you think all alphas are just mean killers? Like, hunters that leave the nest? You think I’d be an unfit nurturer?”

He knows he would be. He’s never nurtured something in his life. Fed the neighbor’s dog for a while, at thirteen, but they moved away and he didn’t really care to find something else. Nature takes care of itself and he’s gotta take care of himself too.

There’s a long stretch of silence where Hanzo must be thinking the same thing.

“Of course not,” the man says.

_Of course not?_

He can’t help but chuckle at the absurdity, feeling pretty bad for how easily he’s taking this guy for a ride. What the hell ever, right? He can use this.

“I’d never hurt my—husband? Wife? Whatever.”

“Legally a wife,” Shimada says.

_Not legally-legally,_  Jesse thinks.

“Right,” he says instead, turning on the charm. Playing up the confusion a little bit. “The goddamn dowry.”

Shimada chuckles. “Yes. The ‘goddamn dowry’.”

He ashes his cigarette over the windowsill, uncomfortably anxious at the idea of being done and leaving this guy alone at the window. Something itches under his skin, all over, crawling down from his back. The same something that drove him out of bed in the first place, trying to find some peace in fresh air and tobacco.

“Tell me about that other thing you said. The Oregon Trail. Dowries were used then?”

He takes another cigarette for himself and lights it.

“You didn’t study much American History in school, huh?”

“I had other issues to attend with,” Shimada says. “Will you share?”

He looks up at Jesse, making eye contact. His sharp cheekbones cast soft shadows and his eyes are unreadable. A purple bruise is visible on his muscular neck. Jesse has the weirdest boner he’s ever had in his life.

He laughs. This is absurd. “Sure I’ll share. It’s part of the Old West, you know. That’s part of my favorite.”

“You said you were not a cowboy.”

Caught. He shrugs, flying by the seat of his pants. “Bond can’t enjoy a cactus or two?”

His emotions are a fucking ping pong ball. The back of his neck itches. It almost burns.

“Bond can enjoy a cactus if he tells me about them,” Shimada says. It’s a mix of biting order and curiosity.

Jesse leans his elbows on the windowsill. “You need sunscreen anywhere you’ll see one.”

“I use sunscreen now,” Hanzo says, stroking his own pale cheek with the back of a finger, on the same hand holding the cigarette. “I do not want cancer.”

Jesss ignores the cancer stick literally in the man’s hand. Whatever. “You’re down lower with no shade. The sun is brighter and ya ain’t gonna get a break.”

An image in his mind of his childhood then, a part of the desert that is more a piece of him than any cliché cactus.

The cloud left a physical impression on the ground, jagged edges of shadow on the dry lakebed. Something that could be called a stream ran through it, cutting curves through millennia of rock. He was fifteen, he had just hidden a body for the wild animals to unearth and devour, and he was throwing up on the exposed roots of a dry bush.

Beside him, Hanzo shivers.

 

It’s when Hanzo is back asleep and snoring quietly through a nose that has probably been broken that Jesse is drawn to a noise, looking to the window for the source. A quiet footstep follows and then a shuffle and he is wrenched bodily through the closet door, straight onto floor of the closet. The door is slid shut behind him; he can’t see how.

He grunts, raising his forearms to defend his face. He’s on his back, a position he normally wouldn’t mind, but the man pinning his hips with his knees is spitting quiet rage and venom.

“Fuck,” he says in a strong accent, enunciating the word with precision, “you.”

He has short hair and a face like Hanzo’s and Jesse remembers seeing him at the wedding wearing an angry, disinterested scowl. He remembers an info packet too. This must be Genji.

A closed fist descends into his left side. Why the hell is Genji Shimada beating on him on the floor of a closet in the middle of the night?

Genji hits him again, a punch to the ribs. Another place that will never show a bruise to anyone with his shirt on.

“You bit him. Fuck… you… monster—“

One more solid punch straight to the gut knocks the wind out of Jesse and he just has to watch as he Genji springs from the closet and back out he window.

He slides into bed around five, just as the night insects are quieting and the birds are starting to stir. Hanzo is asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having someone to bounce a couple ideas and proofread my trash kicks ass. Thank you!
> 
> _friday, hanzo, etc_  
>  _[my trash& inner monologue](krebkrebkreb.tumblr.com)_


	9. Chapter 9

Hanzo wakes to his alarm. The gentle tones coax him into wakefulness and he grabs for his phone to shut it off. Too many emails greet him… Bank, shipping, business, business. He doesn’t sit up while he reads them, irritation building. He is a newlywed. Give him the honeymoon that has been promised and paid for, or at least a short vacation before raising a child takes all freedom from him.

No part of his body truly, _truly_ hurts this morning. His bruised neck feels better, the ache from the bite barely a buzzing presence in the back of his mind. He feels refreshed after that moonlight conversation and some rest. More himself.

Jesse’s breathing shifts. There’s a bit of a linger that wasn’t there before and Hanzo isn’t stupid enough to think he’s still asleep.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t nice to pretend. A few moments more, scrolling through emails and acting like this situation isn’t strange at all.

He finally finds himself faced with a message that needs a personal response but he hesitates once it’s open: the first few lines directly mention Blackwatch. There’s no coded message, just simply ブラックウォッチ in plain text, so easy that McCree could have memorized it before his journey to Japan, even if he pretends to be ignorant of the language and the culture divide between them—

Hanzo presses the button on the side of his phone to turn the display off. This isn’t fair of him, lingering on suspicions and feelings of hurt when he’s hiding things himself.

If they are partners, they should be honest partners.

 _If we are partners_ , Hanzo cannot help but think, _Jesse would accept a bite._

The idea rolls around in Hanzo’s head uncomfortably. He doesn’t know _why_ the other man refuses him this assurance in his future and this last day has given him no answers. Foreign customs, maybe just personal reluctance? Perhaps even an order from this shadowy Blackwatch. That thought unsettles him more than the rest. There is already an unborn Shimada waiting for them. Their stability as a union does not have the time for these politics.

He glances to his left to find the other man watching him, eyes barely open and dark. Their gazes meet but the other man doesn’t look away.

Hanzo works to keep his breathing quiet and even.

“What is it?” he finally says after a long moment of eye contact. Too long in this hazy, sleepy morning light. He’s struck with how Jesse looks beautiful like this, in a mysterious, foreign way.

“I was hoping to see your wallpaper.” His voice is sleepy and curious. Hanzo can’t tell if he’s lying.

Hanzo can’t even tell what he’s talking about. “My wallpaper?”

“You know. On your phone.” Jesse lifts a hand and gestures lazily at the device in Hanzo’s, moving only from the elbow down.

Hanzo makes a quiet noise, soft and considering. He turns the device display back on, showing off the plain background on the passcode screen. “It is blue.”

“That’s a little boring. You’re not blue.”

McCree says it so... confidently. So sure of himself and his observations after merely one day. Hanzo sits up. He cannot do this sort of thing so early.

“I am whatever I choose to be. It is a work phone.” His own irrational defensiveness claws a bit at his empty stomach.

“Yeah, okay.” McCree drops his hand to his abdomen and his face crumples in on itself for a split second. Hanzo catches it out of the corner of his eye.

“What?” he says testily, posture stiff. If his refusal to speak on personal matters is such a bother, the American is in for a surprise.

McCree lifts his head from the pillow to look at him, blinking slowly. “Hm?” he asks. His expression now is blank and neutral, maybe a bit of puzzlement in his sleepy eyes, and Hanzo the claws in his stomach dig deeper.

He huffs and swings his legs out to stand, leaving the other man in bed.

Each step towards the bathroom brings dizziness with it. He tucks his phone into the waistband of his pants so he doesn’t drop it from suddenly numb fingers. He aches now, terribly and suddenly, at the loss of proximity.

McCree groans quietly. Hanzo doesn’t know what he expected. They need to get up eventually.

  


Getting dressed and changing his own bandage does nothing but increase his pain some. Only sitting next to McCree at the table to eat their breakfast soothes him again. The miso is more delicious the closer they sit, the fish more flavorful, the rice more filling.

He knew… not _this_ exactly, but that something like it would happen. He knew before the bite that it would lead him inexorably towards the other man, but none of the things he has read and none of the anecdotes he has heard have prepared him for this kind of _pull._ There’s a red string leading from the bite directly to Jesse McCree and he can feel every tug, every forceful pull up his spine and out through the back of his neck.

It clearly must worsen by the day. He doesn’t need to read about the effects of repeat biting to know that just one has left him ragged.

Meal times seem to be his husband’s preferred hour for asking about his personal life, at least so far. Hanzo has to spend his time eating also answering questions about childhood pets and favorite holidays. McCree is aghast he doesn’t prefer Christmas to the New Year.

He sets down his soup bowl, considering what he’s saying very carefully. “We are not religious. The New Year is about time with family. Traditions. Making happy memories. We will celebrate it with our children.”

McCree throws all of his careful consideration away with a soft chuckle. “Children plural? We’re having more than one?”

Hanzo is struck with the urge to ask him if he literally knows nothing about the deal he agreed to. They will have the one, and then more if it is not an alpha.

“Ask something else,” he says instead of answering, picking his soup up again.

McCree’s laugh is louder this time. “What’s having a brother like, then?”

Hanzo’s chest hurts suddenly, right between his lungs.

“Different than it would have been for you,” he says, his heart beating hard. His tone is acerbic. Having to work harder, do more, because a blood test said he was _different._ How insensitive a question.

“Woah there,” McCree says, like he’s talking to a horse on one of his open American plains, “what’s that mean?”

“It should be obvious.”

His eyebrows come together, big bushy things pointing the wrong way at the tops. “It ain’t.” The way he says it makes it sound halfway between question and statement, but Hanzo is sure it is closer to a statement so he chooses not to respond. This is his right. He has endured interrogation for long enough this morning; does he not still possess free will?

McCree very wisely does not ask him anything more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m a little uncomfortable giving them smartphones in the year 2XXX but I also think they’re not going away any time soon. Like Jesse also having a rad projection holo-tablet like some of the in-game monitors, it’s a concession between sci-fi and anachronisms. I don’t know where the right place to draw the line is.
> 
> _late and short because of (good) life events, but we should still be checking in with jesse on wednesday. if not we’ll at least see an excerpt on my tumblr before friday._


	10. Chapter 10

Breakfast is unusual, by Jesse’s standards. They eat at the table again, after bathing and dressing. It consists of fish, rice, and some sort of weird cloudy tofu soup. Nothing tastes  _ bad, _ just foreign.

Outside the window the sunlight is soft, hazy as it filters through the leaves and the low, thin clouds. The big cone of a mountain in the distance, Jesse guesses it’s Japan’s famous volcano, wears the clouds around its base like a robe. It’s all beautiful. Green like something that could inspire poetry.

He hasn’t seen a cat or a dog the entire time he’s been here. He asks Shimada about it and he’s dismissed immediately.

“We have no time for pets here,” Shimada says with a haughty sniff. He has a bite of fish on the way to his mouth and Jesse lets him finish it before saying anything else.

“No puppies for Christmas? You’re shattering my expectations for rich kids.”

Shimada sniffs again. Thirty-six hours and Jesse is already sure that sound means the man is trying to avoid insulting him. He appreciates the kindness.

“Christmas is a holiday here for couples. I much prefer the new year.”

“You’re sh- screwing with me.” At Shimada’s blank look, he clarifies. “Joking. No Christmas?”

“We are not religious. The new year is about time with family. Traditions. Making happy memories. We will celebrate it with our children.” Shimada is stiff and formal like he always is, but what he’s describing sounds a lot like the way Jesse celebrates Christmas. He’s smarter than to actually say that out loud to such a proud man.

It actually sounds like it would be pretty nice. A bunch of kids home for the holidays while they watch them grow up. Celebrate old traditions, maybe make some new ones. New Years probably comes with fewer presents to buy.

“Children plural, huh? We’re having more than one?”

“Ask something else.” The look on Shimada’s face is so sour, like his rice is coated in lemon.

Jesse laughs.

“What’s having a brother like?” Hhe asks with a smile, curious. Sure it’s a good question for the job he’s doing, but maybe it’s nice to not be an only child. He remembers lonely summers, lonely afternoons, lonely lonely lonely.

Shimada turns halfway in his chair to glare at Jesse, leveling the full intensity of his gaze at him. “Different than it would have been for you.” His voice is harsh and suddenly angry.

_ What the fuck, _ Jesse thinks.

“Woah there, what’s that mean?” He tries to keep his tone even, mindful of the beast he apparently just woke up.

“It should be obvious.”

“It ain’t.” His brow furrows, so desperately confused and out of his depth so suddenly. This was nice a second ago. They were getting along. Joking about the kids they would probably be forced to have, if this were real.

It’s easy to forget what this man is wanted for. A list of charges for arms trafficking,  _ human _ trafficking… Murders— no, assassinations. He’s dangerous and Overwatch is going to have to deal with him. They don’t have a real marriage or a real future.

Breakfast is finished in silence. He doesn’t want to be bitten by this angry dragon.

  
  


Today is more boring than yesterday. No meeting, no fancy dress. Even Shimada lounges around with bare feet, pulling out a laptop to work at the table. He won’t stop taking little glances at Jesse, peeking at him through his eyelashes or out of the corner of his eye.

He’s realized his ribs are probably bruised. He definitely has a bruise on his skin, spreading across his stomach where Genji had hit him. It hurts. Every time he draws a deep breath the ache spreads through his ribs and around his chest. Fuck but the little guy hits hard. Does Hanzo hit so hard?

_ Was he picked on? _ Jesse wonders as he stares blankly at his tablet.  _ Is Genji a little bully? _

That makes him angry. Is  _ that _ what Hanzo had meant, it should be obvious?

Are omegas bullied?

How little does he know about the fucking world? About alphas and omegas and how society works when you know you’re one of them?

Yeah, he was poor when he was young. He had suffered in his childhood. He remembers again the sun on the riverbed after he hid his first body. The crack of the gun echoing off a wall of rock. The rage in the man’s face when he realized he was on the wrong end of a weapon held by a kid who couldn’t even grow a beard yet.

His momma had saved him a lot of hurt, not getting his markers checked. If he had been an omega… Would he be like Shimada? Weird and cagey and afraid? Some of this has to be from being a yakuza, with cameras in his home and a price on his head, but how much of it isn’t? How many of this man’s choices are made for him?

Jesse wishes again for his fucking phone. This tablet he’s using isn’t as secure; just a glorified document reader without a satellite connection to Overwatch servers. It had to pass a security check before he could take it into the meetings.

If he could do some research on any of this… He doesn’t want to hurt the guy’s feelings but he also doesn’t want to be seen as wholly fucking incompetent.

He shifts in his chair, unsettled and restless. His skin doesn’t fit right.

“Hey,” he says, careful to break the silence quietly. Shimada turns to look at him with a question in his silent gaze. “Are we allowed to get out of here?”

“Out of here?” Shimada asks slowly, a brief pause between the first and second word.

Jesse shrugs.

“You know. Out of the room. Get some fresh air, stretch our legs.”

Shimada sighs through his nose, different from those frustrated exhalations earlier. He looks like he’s trying not to smile, maybe, as his mouth presses into a thin line and the corner twitches a little. It’s a strange expression. “Take a walk, you mean.”

Jesse shrugs again, keenly aware of how much the motion  _ hurts _ and how intense Shimada’s face always is. “Yeah, sure.”

“That is a possibility but we will be monitored,” says Shimada.

“Yeah, okay.” He’s actually a little bit excited at the idea of fresh air, definitely glad he asked. He can work with cameras, maybe guards.

Shit. Can he work with hiding his injuries from the guy who’s gonna be with him? Why did he even phrase it like that,  _ are we. _ That was stupid, letting his mouth move without his brain checking in on the process.

At least he’ll get to watch the guy, talk to him more. That’s something. Watch and likely be watched in return.

Jesse sets his tablet down and looks at Shimada, expectant.

It takes him a few moments to even get the man’s attention. When he does, he looks a little bewildered. Blinking and narrowing his eyes before they widen with understanding. “Now?”

“No time like the present,” he says with bravado.

Shimada shakes his head. He shuts his laptop. “Fine.”

Jesse grins, wide and full and showing off his teeth. The swiftness with which Shimada leaves towards the bathroom knocks the wind out of Jesse’s sore lungs.

  
  


The air outside tastes like rain. There was no precipitation in the night but maybe later. That must be a sight here, through these beautiful tangled fruit trees and into the springy grass beneath their shoes. This entire place feels so alive.

A guard follows about ten feet behind, clearly eavesdropping. He’s the first actual human Jesse has seen watching them in a while, not just one of the many nearly identical omnics. It’s still like the guy barely has a face, dark sunglasses hiding his eyes and his expression so blank.

They aren’t allowed to go outside of the family property but that’s fine. He already feels refreshed, and this is some good information about the layout of the compound to put in his report when they’re picked up in two days. Maybe even tomorrow, if Mrs. Lacroix is coming in Overwatch transport.

Shimada has put his hair up to go out, a beautiful comb decorating the pile of hair at the back of his head. Jesse got to watch while he put makeup on, applying mysterious bases of creams and delicately blended layers of eyeshadow and eyeliner.

He leans in to whisper in Shimada’s ear so maybe their observer will have to struggle a bit to hear.

“Sunlight is a good look on you,” he says.

Shimada jerks his head up to look at Jesse, surprise on his face— surprise, and then a flash of… something. Something that makes his eyebrows come together and his lips thin and it looks like pain?

Jesse remembers the bite on the other man’s neck, the savage drip of blood, the way his teeth tore in. He pulls away, placing a hand on Hanzo’s back, below his shoulder blades and far below the bite.

“Shit,” he says, not really caring about the guard behind him or all the cameras. Guilt at surprising the man, making him hurt with an injury Jesse himself left, tugs words out of his mouth. “I forgot about that. Are you…”

Hanzo closes his eyes, inhales carefully, then jerks away with a single step. “I am fine.”

_Well what the fuck ever then,_ Jesse thinks, feeling oddly wounded.  _Be as fine as you want to be._  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thank you to the lovely souls who read through my nonsense for me and help me handle all my dumb ideas and pacing issues. i'm hanging up guns in chekhov's armory while trying to avoid being Too Subtle about it and i could not do it alone!
> 
> i may have to move to weekly updates (probably wednesday) because my stress-triggered migraines cannot handle stressing myself out over fic and also over learning a new language, but that isn't important right now because today is friday anyway. have a good weekend, everyone! i love you very much if you've stuck with the story this far. ♡♡♡♡


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see the end for full notes

It’s nice to be outside. The air is heavy and damp with something in the future. The promise of rain. The promise of something else, with the way McCree’s eyes keep following him.

Sunlight feels good on his neck, sinking into the skin and easing the tension that’s been there since the bite.

He put his hair up to go out, pinning it up carefully with a comb. Makeup too, if only because others expect it from him. He hates the way it feels, coating his skin. Getting in his eyes as he blinks. His left eye waters, a fleck caught under the lid, but he cannot scratch or rub.

They’re walking slowly under the trees just outside the castle when McCree leans over to speak quietly into his ear.

“Sunlight is a good look on you,” he says. His breath moves the tiny hairs on the sensitive skin by Hanzo’s ear.

It’s the closest they’ve been since the wedding night.

He lifts his head, twisting it to look at Jesse, and gets as far as opening his mouth to say — to say  _ something _ , he knows not what exactly, but it doesn’t matter once the fire races down his spine. Even when he corrects his mistake, moving so he is no longer pulling at the ragged, bitten skin, the pain remains. A shooting, shocking thing dazzling its way through all of his nerves.

“Shit,” Jesse says. “I forgot about that. Are you…” He looks stricken.

Hanzo closes his eyes before he can convince himself he sees anything in that expression beyond compassion for a fellow human being. Anything nearing an understanding of the situation at all. He inhales and it only makes it worse, filling his sense with  _ alpha _ and _ bond _ and a terrifyingly strong need to dig his teeth all the way to the bone.

“I am fine,” he forces himself to say. He takes a step away while he’s saying it. Maybe before. Maybe even after. He has no grasp on the passage of time, on anything beyond the scent of the man and his body heat and the rushing of his own pulse.

When he opens his eyes again, Jesse is making a face. His jaw juts forward stubbornly, his brow carries deep furrows. Displeasure, Hanzo realizes.

Jesse looks at him for a long while, like he might say something, and Hanzo prays he does not. Give him peace. Give him a moment to collect his mind.

He gets his moment when Jesse turns away to keep walking along the same path they had been following. Hanzo bows his head and does the same.

He remains demure and quiet. A good omega. A good wife to his new husband. Beautiful, bitten,  _ weak _ . What his family needs him to be. And at the moment, most importantly, what their silent observers need to see from him as they follow them down the gravel path around the castle and towards the shrine.

Apparently freed from any duty he felt to be a good alpha, Jesse leaves him to stare up close at the building of the shrine itself. He gawks at the woodwork, standing on his tiptoes to get a better look and holding his face close to the carvings.

It is unsophisticated to stare so. To not even make an attempt to restrain yourself or to be polite about your admiration. He takes up so much  _ space _ with his broad body, his thick limbs, his enormous height. Hanzo has seen him in chairs, spreading himself like he owns the space around him.

It is unsophisticated and so  _ alpha _ . Bold and showy. So incredibly open. McCree must live in a world where he doesn’t have to hide a thing because of his status.

Hanzo wonders, watching the other man stand too close to, how much of his fascination right now is genuine and how much is chemical.

Chemistry will attract him to Jesse. Chemistry  _ is _ attracting him. He feels something  _ missing _ inside of him when they stand even fifteen feet apart as they are now, like a sappy love story brought to visceral reality. What he feels missing isn’t anything nearly as poetic as his soul, as poetry likes to go on about. He’s missing something much bloodier and meatier and necessary than that.

The empty space it has left inside of him churns violently.

  
  


By the time they return to their western room, Hanzo has come up with no answers about this man he is now bound to. He feels  _ on edge _ , frayed and unfocused in a way that won’t let him return to auction prices and emails on his laptop.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he exhales and rubs at his eye, still aggravated by the makeup that has flaked inside.

Heavy footfalls stomp their way out of the bathroom and Hanzo looks up to see Jesse picking up a chair. He brings it right in front of Hanzo and sets it down backwards, straddling the seat and leaning on the back.

“Look,” McCree says. He inhales, exhales, obviously rethinks his words, and starts again. “Look. I’m sorry I was a dick earlier.”

_ “Excuse me?” _ Hanzo says, taken aback by his language. Sorry he was  _ what _ exactly?

Jesse sighs. He tips his head forward and Hanzo’s eyes follow the line of his neck. “Earlier, outside. I dismissed you like an a— Like a real— I don’t know a lot of ways to call myself out on being a jerk without swearing about it.”

“You just succeeded,” Hanzo points out, and it must be something about the bond already growing inside of him that made him find the effort it took  _ charming. _ Infuriating, yes, but it helped him humanize this alpha, this foreigner, this agent of Blackwatch.

They are both young men, forced here by circumstances out of their control. He needs to stop forgetting that.

_ Help me out here _ , Jesse had said, crouching in front of the futon just one night ago,  _ I don’t know what to do. _

Hanzo can see it so clearly in his mind’s eye.

“I do not know what exactly you are apologizing for,” he says truthfully, “but you are forgiven.”

“Outside,” Jesse says, “when I didn’t even try to comfort you after you were hurt. Then I got in a huff about it and ignored you.”

“We were being watched,” Hanzo reminds him. His tone isn’t unkind but he remains firm about it. "It was good you did not."

“An’... And what, you can’t show any human moments when they’re watching you? Can’t have a little chat with your husband?”

“I am a Shimada. I am what my family needs me to be.”

“Naw,” Jesse says. His fingers are on the back of his neck, scratching an itch, and Hanzo wants to replace those fingers with his teeth. “You’re being spied on. That’s what they need from you?”

“In this situation.” He exhales forcefully through his nose, proud.

“Bullshit.” Jesse draws out the u, lingers on the l, presses his lips together at the end and really  _ looks _ at Hanzo. Looks right into his eyes.

Jesse looks at him like he can actually  _ see _ him. Like he can see everything he’s hiding, see all of his misgivings and all of his upset and how very terribly much he  _ hurts _ . How exhausted he is by all of the stress and all of the new hormones in his blood and how much all of it makes him ache.

_ “What,” _ he spits, venom in his tone, a reflex, a defense, “do you  _ want from me?” _

The look in Jesse’s eyes is too kind, and his tone is steady and compassionate when he speaks: “Nothin’ but honesty. Nothin’ more than you’re willing to give.”

“That—” Hanzo has to take a breath, has to center himself before he says too much. He tries again: “That is quite a thing to ask of me.”

“Seems reasonable. I’ll do the same. Honesty, husband to husband. It never has to leave this room.”

Hanzo is not used to being treated gently. He is not used to being offered  _ companionship _ like this, not from anyone other than his brother. The combination is a low blow he feels in his belly, in his spine, in his teeth.

“You are…” He finds himself pausing again. Here is his  _ chance _ . His chance to say something about the craving, the desire, the urge, the incredible biological  _ need _ to complete their half-formed bond. His chance to demand a reason behind this cruelty before he surrenders the rest of his life to it. The words do not come easily. “You are already not fulfilling your duties as my husband,” he forces himself to say. His voice is not as steady as he would like it to be.

Jesse’s eyes widen and his eyebrows shoot right up into his hairline. His cheeks turn a little pink and his face slides into a smile. “I didn’t realize you were expecting that past the time we had to, sugar. I wouldn’t have stayed away so far away last night.”

Wait. What?

Hanzo narrows his eyes, confused and  _ hurt _ and— “What does  _ that _ mean?”

“Fulfilling my duty? That’s what you say about a husband who’s not...  _ satisfying.” _ He gestures vaguely, waving his hand towards the bed, answering none of Hanzo’s question at all.

“I do not understand.”

A bit of the smile fades from Jesse’s face. “Satisfying sexually.  _ You know.” _

He does not. Among betas, perhaps that is true, but—

A realization hits him like a lightning bolt.

Maybe Jesse does not know. Maybe he does not know the hurt he is causing Hanzo. Maybe he is ignorant to all of this.

Maybe this right now is an act. Entrapment. A way to hurt him more.

Maybe this is Hanzo’s best chance.

He lets himself think on the idea of taking it it for a long, luxurious, too-indulgent second. All the romantic, happy stories he’s heard of what it’s like to be  _ complete…  _

Instincts war with his own pride as he feels the pull of inevitability. Of hormones. Of fate.

“I was supposed to bite you, alpha, but you did not offer.”

Jesse scratches at the back of his neck, eyes wider than before. “Oh,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> changed “the god in their shrine” to “the dragons in the shrine” in chapter 1. literally only one word, but it’s a change so i’m making note of it. i'm pretty obsessive about the most minute details in this fic and there are one-word or one-sentence clues as to what's really going on littered around everywhere, so not documenting a change would be dishonest of me i think.
> 
> a huge **huge** thank you to everyone reading this fic. it is my darling and my baby and i am still utterly devoted to getting it out there. this chapter took 12 drafts to do (most take 4 max), and my health kept getting in the way at every turn. _massive_ thanks also to Joke, who gave me the feedback necessary to take this chapter from a mess to the genuine hanzo internal panic what it wound up being.
> 
> i hate leaving long author's notes so i'll just direct y'all to my tumblr [here](http://krebkrebkreb.tumblr.com/) if you want to read more or get updates on the fic's progress.  
> next chapter next friday, health permitting.
> 
> ♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡


	12. Chapter 12

Shimada is looking at him strangely. He has been since he sat down and dug up the courage to actually apologize. It’s not easy when it’s not part of the act, so he makes it one. Changes his entire posture and brings the word husband into it. Tries to make sure it comes off as honest, because it is, but tries for his own sake to steer it away from being too truthful. Doesn’t mention any of the visceral thoughts he can’t run away from.

It’s almost too much, being pinned by this expression.

If he actually  _ knew _ the man it would be one thing. He could handle this, probably, if it were someone he could  _ decipher _ staring at him with such a look. But a Shimada?

He was the wrong man for this job. He’s in too goddamn deep and Reyes, Lacroix, even  _ Morrison _ is likely to be disappointed in him.

_ It’ll be over soon, _ Jesse tells himself.  _ It’ll be done and I can go home and forget. Finally take some time off and drink for a week and. And. _

And he doesn’t want to forget.

He realizes, watching Hanzo watch him, that forgetting would— It would feel wrong. It would  _ be _ wrong.

Hanzo keeps himself so strong and collected, all of the time. Even while he’s being watched, while he’s… while he’s  _ submitting himself _ to a stranger, bodily and intimately and also for what he thinks will be the rest of his life? His strength blows Jesse to pieces.

“Naw,” he finds himself saying in response to Shimada saying something dumb about that, about being what his family needs. He scratches the back of his neck to try and stop the tingling that’s spreading across his shoulders and down his spine. “You’re being spied on. That’s what they need from you?”

“In this situation,” Hanzo says, so righteous and stubborn and prideful.

“Bullshit.” He draws out the word, trying to get some of this to  _ sink in _ . If he can’t take any of this with him, maybe he can— help, somehow? Help this guy discover who he is when he’s not being controlled.

_ “What _ do you  _ want from me?” _   Hanzo spits at him, suddenly so viciously angry.

Jesse is going to drink an entire bottle of whiskey or tequila or paint thinner a  _ night _ when he gets home so he doesn’t have to think about the answer to that question ever again. Two entire bottles.

“Nothin’ but honesty,” he has to say. He  _ forces himself _ to say. And further, to lay it on real thick: “Nothin’ more than you’re willing to give.” He tries to put an emphasis there, on  _ willing. _

“That—” Hanzo hesitates and Jesse feels terrible, like he’s betraying something precious. “That is quite a thing to ask of me.”

“Seems reasonable. I’ll do the same. Honesty, husband to husband. It never has to leave this room.” He’s staying on the same track, bringing back their ‘relationship’, but the words taste sour in his mouth.

“You are… You are already not fulfilling your duties as my husband.”

What?

Jesse feels his face moving entirely without his permission, eyebrows all the way up to his hairline and eyes wide before he can even take a full breath. Even his cheeks are getting in on the action, heating up at the memory of—  _ heat, wet blood, slickness everywhere and he’s never felt so complete _ —

He forces his lips into a smile. Gotta think fast.

“I didn’t realize you were expecting that past the time we had to, sugar. I wouldn’t have stayed so far away last night.”

“What does  _ that _ mean?”

“Fulfilling my duty. That’s what you say about a husband who’s not…  _ satisfying.” _ He gestures helplessly towards the bed. He can’t believe Hanzo is making him  _ say it. _ He really wants to rub it in?

“I do not understand.”

For fuck’s sake.

“Satisfying sexually.  _ You know.” You’re the one who brought it up… _

Hanzo’s gaze move to the bed and he inhales slowly. There’s a frozen moment where Jesse thinks he is about to combust from embarrassment and tension.

“I was supposed to bite you, alpha, but you did not offer.”

The thoughts come together with all the force of a crashing wave. All of the little inconsistencies in their conversation that he had shrugged off as part of a language barrier. No, he’s just an idiot. His neck is so fucking itchy—

“Oh,” he manages to wring out, digging his nails in deep.

He’s just made an absolute fool of himself.

“You seem…” Hanzo hesitates and Jesse wants to squirm, waiting for the man’s judgement to be pronounced upon him. He knows he seems like a degenerate, an ass only focused on carnal things— “I cannot tell what you are thinking.”

Okay. That’s an opportunity for damage control.

“I’ve already got enough scars,” Jesse says. He holds out his left arm and pulls up his sleeve: Right there on his forearm are two knife wounds that didn’t heal particularly cleanly.

Hanzo’s response is a very quiet “I see”.

Jesse feels his heart drop to the pit of his stomach. That was the wrong kind of damage control.

He’s— He may be an idiot but he’s not  _ that kind _ of idiot. He can read people just fine,  _ better than fine, _ he can tell what someone is like when they’ve just received bad news and they’re hiding it poorly. And he just gave Hanzo bad news.

He is definitely in too fucking deep because he genuinely feels  _ awful. _ Not that he wouldn’t feel a little bit rotten for hurting anyone, but it’s all part of the job. This isn’t his first rodeo. With Hanzo… He feels out of control.

He aches to hold this other man and offer him the world if it will bring the light back into his voice and his eyes and what the  _ fuck. What the fuck. _

Jesse needs to figure out what all of this biting stuff means before he makes any more mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short but i will see you soon with hanzo i _promise_ ♡♡♡♡♡♡


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm really sorry this took so long

Hanzo takes the leap. He plummets off the edge, into a world of… of trusting this man, this stranger.

“I was supposed to bite you, alpha, but you did not offer.”

“Oh,” Jesse says. He’s scratching at the back of his neck like an embarrassed little boy.

“You seem,” Hano begins, then pauses to choose his words carefully. This is a moment of honesty. Husband to husband, Jesse had said. He owes it to both of them to not assume. “I cannot tell what you are thinking.”

Jesse does something unexpected then: He pulls up his sleeve, presents a forearm that it takes Hanzo a moment to focus on.

He realizes what he’s looking at as the words his husband have said catch up to him. “I’ve already got enough scars,” Jesse says.

Staring at the other man’s forearm, his ears start to ring.

“I see,” Hanzo says.

He doesn’t see—or he does, but what he sees isn’t what is being presented to him. The scars to Hanzo are beautiful, almost something to be envied. Evidence of a life fought hard for. A man worthy of the way he walks and the muscle he carries, someone with the strength to survive whatever gave him this.

Is Jesse truly so vain? Has this _all_ been about vanity? Or is this a lie, a manipulation by—by the Clan? By Overwatch? They’re trying to get him to… to _what_? What would be the _point_ of this?

The field of his vision narrows right onto the line of those scars. Jesse is saying something else but Hanzo cannot keep up. The foreign syllables go in one ear and out the other, fading into the background hiss and the pounding of his heart.

 _Breathe_ , he reminds himself. The voice in his head sounds remarkably like the American’s.

It’s not working.

It _needs_ to work.

The world is swallowing him whole, into a dark void, pulling away his entire future...

He has never felt unwell in quite _this_ way before. These emotions—a part of him knows it’s not… His logical, rational, _thinking_ brain is not driving this. Hormones, biology, his body are in charge right now.

That thought, that thread is the only bit of clarity he can find in his chaotic mind and he clings to it like a drowning man.He can’t breathe like he is drowning. His… his face is wet like he is drowning.

No. He’s crying.

“Hanzo,” Jesse says. Is saying, repeatedly, over and over in a way that sounds like something between a question and a request.

A request, except Hanzo cannot figure out what he’s being asked.

There are tales—folktales and stories about widowed, _halved_ omegas. Women who were one half of a true bond, whose alphas were killed before the bond could be completed. They died of heartbreak, becoming ghosts.

For a panicked moment, Hanzo believes that will be his future.

A hand on his cheek. He didn’t see it move; his eyes are still fixed on the forearm, the scars.

“Hanzo, tell me what you _need_ from me.”

“ _I don’t know,”_ he gasps out, realizing too late that he isn’t speaking Jesse’s language. He is so deep in his unknowing that he cannot even word it in English.

“I have no idea what that means,” Jesse says, caressing gently along the line of Hanzo’s cheekbone with the rough pad of his thumb. Hanzo can feel every time the rough loops and whorls of his fingerprint snag on the tiny imperfections of his skin.

He takes a deeper breath of air. His ears are still ringing, but the contact of the hand on his face is steadying. He feels… He feels… He still doesn’t know how he feels.

“Okay, yeah, breathe” Jesse is saying. Whispering, almost, as though he’s afraid if he’s too loud the other man will panic again. Hanzo can’t quite catch every word though the tone is reassuring. “Just breathe like that. We’ll circle back t’what you said. Breathe, …at’s good, breathe…”

Jesse places his other hand on the unbitten side of Hanzo’s neck, finally ripping the scarred forearm out of his line of sight. He raises his gaze to the other man’s face, shocked to find what seems like real and genuine concern in his expression. All of this care… It makes no sense when he continues to be so _cruel_.

“Why do you do this?” Hanzo asks, _snaps_ almost. The words have left him before he even considers the potential political repercussions of voicing the question at all.

Hanzo’s heart hammers in his chest. Jesse must be able to hear it, but

“Pardon?” he finally says, after a time.

It takes Hanzo another moment to realize it’s a question.

“This,” he clarifies. He gestures between them, then to his neck. From the look Jesse gives him, nothing has been cleared up. He tries again, frustrated. “This mocking kindless, when you–when you refuse me equality.” He isn’t proud of the way he stutters, the way his voice catches on vowels and his breath hitches over consonants. The way he has to pause and think.

“Sugar, I still don’t understand what you’re talking’ about.” Jesse takes his hand from where it rests between Hanzo’s neck and shoulder to run a hand through his already messy hair. “Pretend I’m an idiot—more of an idiot, if you have to. Tell me how to stop this from happening’ again. Fuck if I know why but it’s _killin’_ me to see you like this, baby doll.”

“I am nobody’s doll.”

Jesse raises his hands placatingly and Hanzo snatches one back to his cheek before he can think about it. The touch is steadying and he wishes to continue to not feel so _crushed._

For a weak second, a moment he knows even at the time he will likely grow to regret, Hanzo lets himself believe that the tenderness from this man he is forever shackled to is _genuine._ That his feelings and his opinions are truly cared for in this marriage. That if he can just figure out how to voice what he needs, he will be heard and helped.

He takes a steadying breath and thinks of those half-bonded ghosts, of every alpha he didn’t spend time with for fear of forming a true bond. He thinks of everything he’s heard about what bonding would be like, about how it would make him feel.

This isn’t it. This isn’t anything like how he expected. This is crushing and isolating and he is terrified.

He is _never_ terrified like this. Remembering that, remembering his usual ability to be calm and collected, is almost as steadying as the hand he holds against his face. This is not how she is always. This is not _him._

“Hanzo? Sugar, honey? Never baby doll again?”

He takes another deep breath to continue pushing the panic away. In through his nose, out through his mouth. He remembers the instructions to breathe during his… during what he supposes was a panic attack. Had that really only been a day ago?

Jesse McCree had not behaved like this then. He had been worried, yes, but not nearly as out of his mind as Hanzo himself.

The skin-on-skin contact feels… fantastic. Relaxing. Everything is settling into place, like he’s just falling into meditation. Calm is curling through him, spreading out from his chest so slowly that he almost didn’t notice the creep of it.

Something makes sense to him then, all of a sudden.

“I think we are both…” He trails off. What is the word? “We are possibly both being harmed—harmed emotionally by this bond.”

McCree recoils, pulling his hand away. He recoils so thoroughly that he even slides his _seat_ to be further from Hanzo. He misses the touch, the proximity _immediately._

“Pardon?” McCree says, and Hanzo knows enough now to realize it’s a question..

It takes him a moment anyway to figure out his own words. Anxiety and terror are spiraling back up through his chest faster than he had been made calm. “It is—uneven? Unbalanced? I do not know if perhaps we are… true mates? Or the bite being wrong-“

“Hold up! Hold up, hold up,” McCree barks at him, “you _told me_ to bite you!” His expression sits somewhere between offended and angry.

“Yes, but you bit the wrong place, _alpha!”_

He blinks. Opens his mouth and closes it again. Scowls. “Well I just told you I’m an idiot, didn’t I!”

Hanzo realizes quite abruptly that they are _both_ idiots: “This is an honest misunderstanding. Isn’t it?”

McCree rubs at his face with a hand in obvious frustration, leaning further back in his chair. “No shit.” He’s actually angry now, genuinely angry, and Hanzo is glad everything about omegas being compelled to bend to a furious alpha is just untrue. Folktale and story, like those omegas who became ghosts.

Hanzo takes a breath, closing his eyes against a wave of vertigo. It’s been building since McCree… Oh. Since McCree stopped touching him. Since he moved his chair almost a foot away, less than a minute ago.

“McCree— _Jesse,_ please give me your hand.”

“Back to McCree already?”

Hanzo cannot puzzle out the man’s tone. It should by all rights be offended or upset, but he is… worried?

No matter. Hanzo reaches for his hand, content to test his theory even McCree won’t entertain his ideas.

 _“Why?”_ McCree insists, holding his hands out of Hanzo’s reach. HIs eyebrows are drawn together, suspicion etching lines into his forehead.

Hanzo’s lips pull deeper into a frown. “I apologize for forgetting to address you as—“

“Why my _hand,”_ McCree clarifies. He looks… It takes Hanzo longer than he would like to classify the expression. Is it truly suspicion, or fear? Is he just reading too far into what is only irritation or anger?

“Skin,” Hanzo insists. He moves forward, reaching to touch McCree’s face if he won’t give him his hand, and—

And things in his mind are calmer again. The soft scratch of stubble under his palm, the way the other man’s lips pull briefly into a small and perhaps involuntary smile… By the time the count in his head reaches five, the welling anxiety is nearly faded.

“Oh,” Jesse mumbles.

Oh indeed.

He can feel his pulse slowing, steady calmness pulling back at the edges of all the negative feelings he has been feeling.The air in his lungs feels cooler, tastes sweeter. Fresher. His ears aren’t ringing anymore. When did they even _begin_ ringing?

 _This_ is what he had expected from bonding. This, this upwelling of oxytocin and unexpected feelings of peace and fondness and not… Not…

It occurs to Hanzo that they should speak to a doctor. He immediately realizes that they cannot, not one of the clan’s physicians.

“Jesse,” Hanzo says, then pauses. What does he _say_ now? What can he say in the face of… of whatever is happening to him. This burden that seems to have fallen on _both_ their shoulders as a result of this arranged marriage.

“Hanzo,” Jesse counters. He looks somber, the light from the window casting deeper shadows into his frown. Hanzo can feel his cheek moving as the American talks but doesn’t pull his hand away. “Hanzo, this is fucked. We’re fucked.”

Hanzo inhales sharply, thinking fast. “Maybe it will be better with time. Perhaps when you are comfortable at home…”

He doesn’t point out how uncomfortable the idea of leaving his home still makes him.

Jesse places his hand atop Hanzo’s with a heavy sign. “Yeah,” he says, “maybe when I’m home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no more tumblr. you can find me as krebshouting @ twitter, crab @ pillowfort, or kreb @ dreamwidth.  
> maybe we'll see chapter 14 before 2020. estimated fic completion at sometime before 2050... i hope.


End file.
